
y 



Pass, F'^Xj ♦ 
Book aA-£^-2l^ 




WM. D. JELKS, Governor of Alabama. 



THE 

ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY 



OBSERVATIONS UPON AND DESCRIPTIONS OF 

THE RAPID COMMERCIAL, INDUSTRIAL 

AND AGRICULTURAL ^ADVANCEMENT 

OF ALABAMA IN RECENT YEARS. 




PUBLISHED BY 

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND INDUSTRIES 

R. R. POOLE, COMMISSIONER. 






OCT 



1906 



D.ofD. 



ALABAMA OF TO-DAY 



LiH'TER FROM HoN. R, R, PoOLE, COMMISSIONER OF AGRICUL- 
TURE AND Industries, to Gov. W. D. Jelks, in sub- 
mitting THE PUBLICATION. 



Montgomery, Ala., March, 1906. 

To His Excellency, Hon. W. D. Jelks, 

Governor of Alabama. 

Sir: — I submit herewith the pubHcation, presenting in a 
measure, the resources and development of Alabama during my 
administration of the office of Commissioner of Agriculture 
and Industries, a publication authorized and directed by act of 
the Legislature. 

The difficulty in compiling a publication which will, even in 
a degree, present the splendid natural resources. of the State, 
or adequately portray the wonderful mineral and agricultural 
development of Alabama in the past six years, must present 
itself to every man at all conversant with conditions in our 
State. The best that we may do with a limitation of space as 
well as of finance, is to set down in type some information that 
bears upon the unusual richness of Alabama and picture some 
few of the most remarkable developments of recent years. 

That Alabama, starting late in life, has, in the development 
of her unparallelled mineral resources, outstripped her sisters 
of the Union until she is now second in the sisterhood of 
States in the production of iron and third in the production of 
coal, may be known to the informed Alabamian, but it is not a 
matter of knowledge to the general public out of the State or 
in the State for that matter. Nor is the continued rapid ex- 
ploitation of our buried treasurers of coal and iron, a develop- 
ment that will in time place Alabama at the head of the iron 
making and coal producing States of the Union, known as It 
should be known. 



6 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

The growth and development of its agricultural interests 
have been hardly less remarkable. An era of farming pros- 
perity is' upon us. The assertion may be safely ventured that 
the past three years have been the most prosperous the Alaba- 
ma farmer has known in a third of a century. It has been a 
beneficent era for the State's great staple, cotton. The sat- 
isfactory market for the great crop of cotton which Alabama 
produces has infused a new vitality in our agriculture and in 
our commerce. It has stopped, too, the exodus of the white 
man from the farms and plantations to the city and it has' done 
more in turning back this moving stream from cityward to 
the farm house and the cultivated field than any other one 
cause. 

A period of development is a period of change, and change 
and development are rich in opportunities. To present as 
best we may the richness of the Alabama Opportunity is the 
primal purpose of this publication submitted for your ap- 
proval. The earnest and intelligent efforts, now making for 
the presentation of Alabama's splendid claims to consideration, 
by the workers for thrifty and intelligent immigrants must 
command the assistance and cooperation of every patriotic 
citizen of the State. If what has been gathered and published 
here shall give aid and assistance to the organizations work- 
ing to that end, one purpose, at least, of the work h'ere repre- 
sented will have been served. 

A time ripe for this general movement has been chosen. 
If what is published here shall fail to show the opportune 
timeliness of a general immigration movement throughout Ala- 
bama this publication will have fallen short of its object. 
The failure will have come, not through lack of zeal nor lack 
of evidence to prove the case of those of us who are responsi- 
ble for this publication. 

I am pursuaded that what is within the covers of this volume 
will amply repay reading and consideration, by the ambitious 
and thrifty wherever they are located and by the people of the 
State as well, who may not know how rapidly Alabama is 
stepping forward in the march of time. 

Our change, our development has come quietly upon us. 
Alabama, unlike some of the Western States has not suffered 
and is not suffering from overadvertising. No dishearten- 
ing revelations await the new comer. It. is not his fate in Ala- 



THE ALABAMA OPrORTUNITV. / 

bama as in some other states, to find the opportunities which 
were once so attractively painted and which in truth one time 
existed, but passed away and gone. Nor will he find, I am ab- 
solutely convinced, that our opportunities have been exagger- 
ated or overpainted. 

Our handicap, on the other hand has been underadvertis- 
ing. The outer world has known too little of what we have to 
oflfer. The public mind is beginning to grasp in a way and to 
approximate in a degree the richness of our mineral stores. 
The idea of our mineral wealth has gotten abroad because of 
its marvelous development in the past quarter of a century. 
In the same way our agriculturai interests are undergoing 
change and progress. 

Upon ovir farms the negro is now' ringing in the greatest 
change. The movement of the negro from the farms and plan- 
tations, to the mines, to the lumber camps, to the railroad 
works is little short of a race exodus', this exodus, this agri- 
cidtural evolution, entails loss and embarassment upon the 
larger land owners, the larger planters, it presents a serious 
question to them. 

But for the interest of the State as a whole this wholesale 
removal of the negroes from the farm does not spell misfor- 
tune for (Alabama. In many sections of Alabama 
the negro's free handed occupancy, as a thriftless and care- 
less tenant, has all but eclisped the sun of that section's agri- 
cultural prosperity. He was not a successful farmer. His 
leaving has broken up some of the great plantations of the 
State, lands that were held in bodies of three, four and five 
thousand acres; they are rich acres, too, for the wealthy land 
owners, the slave holders of ante-bellum days had an eye for 
only the richest and most fertile acres. 

The land may now be had at a modest figure. It will be 
ofifered to the new comer to Alabama at a low figure, at an 
astonishing figure to him, particularly if he is familiar with 
land prices in the eastern and middle states, not because it 
lacks fertility or agreeable surroundings, but because it lacks 
men to till the soil. 

That in fact is what Alabama needs above all else, men to 
till the soil. 

Nor is the need confined to the great cotton raising sections 
of Alabama. It is' felt in the newer portions of the State, 



b THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

in those sections over which the big saw mills have passed and 
in which are thousands upon thousands of acres of "cut over" 
land, acres which need only working of the soil to repay every 
effort a hundred fold and to become in the whole a most val- 
uable asset to the State. Nor is this an untried portion of 
our State. In the wide expanse of this "cut over" section there 
are thousands of farmers prosperous and contented, but the 
number of farmers to the number of acres is disproportionately 
small and inadequate. And again the land is offered at a 
ridiculously low figure when compared with the prices that 
prevail further north. 

Nor should one think that cotton growing is the only ag- 
ricultural interest of the State worthy of mention. Undoubt- 
edly a richer opportunity in Alabama is presented to the man 
who is familiar with truck farming, stock raising, fruit grow- 
ing and kindred farming, than to the man who is reared in fa- 
miliarity with the growing and cultivation of cotton, for the 
former has nothing to unlearn. Moreover, in the majority of 
those portions of Alabama where inducements are being offered 
to immigrants, there are demonstration farms, places which 
show exactly what the land will do and places where the best 
and most promising methods are taught. 

In the matter contained in this publication, I feel, that the 
tribute paid the splendid climate of Alabama is inadequate. 
The Southern portion is Gulf Coast. There is not a section 
of the State, but in which summer heat is delightfully tem- 
pered by Gulf breezes. There are but few weeks in the entire 
}car, but that an active outdoor life may be lead. There are 
but very few weeks in which the farmer finds it neces'sary to 
feed his grazing cattle. The summers are longer than those 
of the northern states, but the heat is n-ever so intense. In that 
wide stretch of terriory lying between Montgomery and Mo- 
bile, a distance of i8o miles, there never has been an instance 
of a sun stroke. The continued cooling breezes from the south 
are responsible for the tempered heat and the agreeable days 
of summer, while the earlier springs, the longer summers, the 
later falls, and the shorter winters give fine chance for rotated 
crops on the same land in the same year. 

That Afabama is a splendid goal for the man who is looking 
for opportunity and to whom a rich soil and an unrivalled cli- 
mate at a small cost, is reflected in the pages of this publica- 
tion, I sincerely hope. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 9 

In casting about for material to represent the richness of 
Alabama and its splendid opportunities I have been impressed 
with the letters written by Will T. Sheehan as staff correspon- 
dence in the Montgomery Advertiser, one of the leading papers 
of the South and a paper of the highest standing. I have been 
particularly impressed with the value of these letters, in such 
a cause, from the fact that they were not written to boom Ala- 
maba to the outside world. I feel that they are more of value 
because when they were written it was not suspected that they 
would be put in a publication exploiting Alabama's resources 
and chances. They had no such end in view. 

The Montgomery Advertiser sent out Mr. Sheehan to lay 
before the people of the State the wonderful development, the 
remarkable progress of the State in recent years. As a news- 
paper man of training and experience he was put in the field 
to tell the people of one portion of the State what the people 
of another portion was doing. He was simply to show Ala- 
bama in 1905 for the benefit of the readers of the Advertiser. 

The entire expense of the undertaking was borne by the Ad- 
vertiser. Neither the Advertiser nor its staff correspondent 
were under a dollar's obligation to the State, to any county or 
town, to any man cfr any set of men. 

So much of explanation is due because of the space in this 
publication I have set aside for those letters, which have been 
here reprinted without change. 

It has been my wish and my endeavor to have every section 
of Alabama represented in this publication. There are sixty- 
six counties in Alabama and even if it were practicable to se- 
cure a letter or a chapter from every county in the State the 
whole would be of such a bulk, that it could not be embraced 
in a publiiation intended as a handbook of the State. The let- 
ters which have been given a place in the volume have been 
selected, out of the great number written for the Advertiser, 
with the special purpose of representing every section of the 
State. The letter from each county mentioned as a county is 
selected because it best represents that section of which that 
particular county is typical or representative. 

I came to feel that even this method of selection could not 
give every section its particular dues. Even then some por- 
tion of Alabama might go unrepresented, a thing I most ear- 
nestly wished to avoid. 



10 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

For a valuable article on the weather and climatic conditions 
of Alabama, with information exhaustively gathered, together 
with some interesting reports and comments on conditions in 
Alabama I am indebted to Captain D. W. Mclver, a veteran 
newspaper man and one who is thoroughly familiar with his 
native state of Alabama. 

The great Tennessee Valley is one of Alabama's proudest 
boasts. It was not to be considered that so rich, so fine an ag- 
ricultural section should be inadequately presented in any pub- 
lication bearing upon Alabama's' wealth. The special chapter 
on the Tennessee Valley is from the pen of Editor Charles P. 
Lane, of the Huntsville Tribune, a pungent and forceful wri- 
ter who has spent the greater portion of his life in that section 
of which he writes. 

In closing I may be permitted to again express the hope I 
cherish, that the rapid growth and manifest prosperity of the 
past few years, in which you have been so interested, and to 
which you have contributed by means of every opportunity 
the ofifice of Governor has afiforded you. will continue until 
Alabama is safely established in the high place, appointed for 
her by nature and by destiny. 

I am, very respectfully yours, 

R.'r. Poole, 
Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries. 




R. R. POOLE, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries. 



A W^ord in Explanation 



The letters which comprise this publication are taken from 
a series written as Staff Correspondence of the Montgomery 
Advertiser. For none of the letters did the Advertiser receive 
a cent from the community or section spoken of in the letters 
and which from their publication might receive benefit or ad- 
vantage. The Advertiser management undertook the bur- 
densome expense of this work in the patriotic desire to help 
along the industrial and progressive movement which has 
become so emphatic in Alabama in recent years. 

It was felt that the State's agricultural, industrial and com- 
mercial advancement had become so pronounced in these re- 
cent years that a closer study of existing conditions, a wider 
distribution of information concerning these conditions were 
due the energy of the people who had brought them about, if 
for no other reason. And with a view of, not only informing 
the outside world of what Alabama was doing, but of laying 
before the people of one section of Alabama an account of 
what the people of other communities within the borders of 
the State were doing for the upbuilding of Alabama. In the 
accomplishment of this double purpose it was only natural 
that it should be shown that although Alabama, like other 
Southern States in the despondent days that followed the great 
war had marked time, while her northern and western sisters 
who had received no dire and cruel wounds in that war had 
marched forward with unweakened and undiminished steps, 
she has now felt the impetus, the exhiliration of a new era of 
industry and she had sprung forward and with swift and cer- 
tain steps was moving to the front. 

That she has overcome the industrial misfortunes of other 
years is due no less' to the twin facts that in the bosom of her 
northern mountains lies greater mineral wealth than any State 
South of Pennsylvania may boast of, and that her fertile acres 
to the south are equal to the best that Texas or Mississippi 
miay show, than to the quickened spirit of energy and progress 
of her people. 



J4 THK AI.AIiAMA or'i'ORTL'xrrv. 

The within letters were written on the spot, while the facts 
were fresh in the mind of the writer and while the impressions 
of progress, and prosperity were still undimmed. If the imper- 
fections of the letters are too pronounced, it may be here plead, 
in extenuation, that they were written with the haste and speed 
that is so remorselessly demanded by daily newspaper work. 

There are collected here and published for distribution by 
Hon. R. R. Poole, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries 
of the State of Alabama, as a part of the Department's con- 
tinual work of exploiting Alabama's wealth and progres's and 
of drawing to the State her just and proportionate share of 
the tide of immigration which is turning from the west to the 
South. For the encouragement of energetic men in various 
communities of the State Commissioner Poole has had a suf- 
ficient number of copies printed to supply moderate demands 
for the pamphlet. 



Modern Methods of Montgomery Farmers 



HTvN .a neat little waterworks system is' built for them, 
with a big- wind mill and a cemented surface cistern, 
wdien their food is cut and chopped for them by specially 
built machinery, when practically the whole farm has been laid 
out for their advantage and their benefit, it would seem that 
the horse, the cow, the hog and the sheep are coming into their 
own in the agricultural economy of a prairie plantation of 
Montgomery County. 

This is the condition on the Hunter Vaughn place six miles 
southeast of Montgomery. There cattle of all sorts are given 
the highest sort of consideration. There is money, much 
money in cattle in Montgomery County, more than most farm- 
ers realize, but the money making possibilities of stockkraising 
is fully appreciated by the energetic and intelligent proprietor 
of the big farm. 

He has built round little cement pools in his great pastures, 
and these little pools are for all the world like little fountains. 
They are more like fountains because of the iron posts fixed 
to the bottom of the pools', and through which iron chains are 
run. These iron chains and pools are not, however, for the pur- 
pose of ornamentation. They are there to keep the cattle 
from taking a bath when they should only take a drink. 
These cemented pools rising from the green Bermuda pasture, 
are more than mere details. They are symbols of the high 
standing of stock and cattle on that particular farm. They 
are symbols that the great monopoly of cotton upon the lands 
of Montgomery County has been broken, that at least some 
of the tentacles of the royal octopus. King Cotton, has been 
broken loose. . • 

Where cotton raising has full swing, everything else is sub- 
ordinated to it. Cattle and other things are mere side issues 
to be brushed aside if they interfere in any way. 

REIGN OF COTTON DISPUTED. 

And if the main sway of cotton can be successfully dis- 
puted on prairie acres and prairie plantations, why it can be 
disputed and set at naught in any section of Alabama. 

2 



18 Till-. Al. AI'.AMA OPPORTUXITV. 

So these cemented cisterns are things of special significance. 
They sliow for one thing- that the question of the proverbial 
dryness' of the prairie pasture has been solved. The cisterns 
are connected with a storage tank of 5,000 gallons, a tank that 
is filled and kept full by the big wind mill on the hill. 

This comprehensive water works arrangement is a necessit}' 
for Mr. \'aughan. who has so many dollars of his own invested 
in stock and who takes other people's cows and horses to 
board during the spring and summer months. Mr. \'aughan 
has for instance 250 sheep. This drove of sheep is of value for 
its wool alone, for the sheep are sheared regularly. But its 
chief value lies in the rapid way in which the size of the drove 
increases. Now, young lambs in the spring bring $3 each 
when they are carried to the city and sold for Montgomery's 
tables, and lambs from a flock of 250 sheep are frequent and 
mmierous. 

There are cattle of proud ancestry on the \"aughan place. 
There are fifteen head of Hereford stock, thoroughbred and 
registered. The monarch of the herd cost Mr. \'aughan $525;. 
and several heifers were bought at $200 or $225 each. And 
then there are scores of native cattle feeding upon the farm. 
The importance of cattle raising on this well known place may 
be estimated when it is understood that 800 acres of it alone 
are devoted to pasture. Over 200 of these acres are grazing 
a big drove of native hogs, hogs that are being raised for the 
market. 

TWO PLANTATIOXS IN ONE. 

The \'aughan place, all in all, is a remarkable, farm. It is 
composed of two plantations as plantations went in the old 
days, and it contains about 2,500 acres. The two plantations 
which comprise it are known to the older citizens of Montgom- 
ery County as the Remsen place and the Davidson place. The 
Woodley Road runs between. 

It is a splendid piece of farming property, these two plan- 
tations, amounting to 2,500 acres. xA,nd it is owned by a young 
man, a young man on the sunny side of 30 who started ten 
years ago with eighty acres of this land and some few debts. 
The big farm, its' splendid equipment, its fortune in stock and 
cattle, he has acquired b\- intelligent perseverance in the past 
ten years. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 19 

One thousand acres is devoted to the raising of hay. It is 
a big industry. The crop this last year amounted to 1,500 tons. 
Much of the hay is yet in the big dark colored stacks that are 
seen on nearly every hill. But the traction engine writh its 
twenty-horse power is' constantly puffing away along side the 
big square stacks and the steam hay press is constantly dig- 
ging into the piled up hay. One can hardly drive along the 
beautiful Carter Hill road without meeting one of the four 
mule wagons piled high in the air with baled hay. 

Two CROPS GROWN. 

The acres that grow hay are made to grow oats too, in 
many instances'. Ihe land is harrowed, the oats are broad 
casted, allowed to grow and then cut. After which the land is 
permitted to grow up in grass for the production of hay. 
Every sort of modern machinery is used in the planting, cut- 
ting and baling of the hay. 

While cotton is of secondary importance on the Vaughan 
place, one would hardly gather this from the size of the crop. 
A four hundred bale yield on any one farm or plantation is a 
thing to excite comment and praise. This is what was' gathered 
last year from the 500 acres in cotton on the V^aughan place. 
A pretty good crop for the number of acres used and a much 
better cotton crop than appears at first glance, inasmuch as 
Mr. Vaughan plants cotton in a way that is a little out of the 
ordinary. Cotton and corn are planted together. There being 
eight rows of cotton and two rows of corn. That some of these 
prairie acres planted in this' way produced a bale to the acre 
is nothing short of remarkable. 

USES OF MACHINERY. 

That traction engine of Mr. Vaughan's place would be a 
valuable adjunct upon any farm. Take the single item of 
plowing alone. This engine pulls two gang plows, each of 
which has four plow points. It is no trouble to break up thir- 
ty-five or forty acres a day with the untiring traction engine. 

All the corn on the place is cut and not allowed to remain 
until the fall months on the stalk. It is thrown into a patented 
shredder which separates the ears from the stalk. The stalk 



20 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

and fodder having been shredded the shreds are shot up into 
the barn by an arrangement Hke the round tube which picks 
up the seed cotton from the wagons at the modern gins. The 
ears are carried into the crib by an endless chain. 

The vakie of labor saving machinery is given its true esti- 
mate on the Vaughan place. The traction engine and the corn 
shredder are interesting because of their novelty, but mowers, 
reapers and binders and other modern farm conveniences are 
called upon there to do the work in their separate spheres. 

The machinery and the business correspondence on Mr. 
Vaughan's place has reached so high a degree of importance 
that they demand the time of one man. Thomas Jones, well 
known in Montgomery, has the responsibility of these impor- 
tant charges. 

AS TO STOCK RAISING. 

The Hagan stock farm was originally a part of the Vaughan 
place. It was sold off early last year to Francis J. Hagan, one 
of the best known stockmen of Kentucky, and who was a num- 
ber of years upon the staff of The Breeder's Gazette. Mr. 
Hagan was greatly impressed with Montgomery County as a 
stock raising section. He had bought fifty-nine head of pure 
breed short horns to put on his Montgomery County place and 
was' going extensively into stock raising here, but on a visit 
to Kentucky he fell a victim to the hatred of a violent man who 
was his enemy because of a business transaction. Since his 
death the place has been ably managed by Mrs. Hagan. who 
was reared in the blue grass regions of Kentucky and who is 
familiar with the care and the raising of stock. Of her it is 
said that the stock and cattle upon her place receive better care 
and attention than any stock upon any farm or plantation in 
Montgomery County. 

There are now on the Hagan place thirty-three head of the 
finest short horn cattle in the country. These cattle were 
bought by Mr. Hagan from the best stock farms in the country 
and they are registered as the best of their class. It is said 
that there is not a cow upon the place that cost less than $ioo 
and some of them were bought for double the money. 

The cattle on the Hagan place are not to be sold for beef to 
butchers. The stock is too valuable for that purpose. Thev 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 21 

are of a pure strain and are to be sold breeders and growers. 
The herd now includes a number of Alabama born calves that 
are strong and thriving and whose birth and breeding is as 
good as' the best of the herd. 

Mrs. Hagan has also a drove of Berkshire hogs. Her barn 
yards are covered with fine chickens and geese, for these things 
are the usual accompaniments of a Kentucky farm and this 
Alabama stock farm is being run on the Kentucky plan. The 
geese are of the Hong Kong variety and the chickens are pure 
Plymouth Rock. It is a way that the Kentucky people have 
of insisting on the best and purest breed whether it be of ani- 
mals, fowls or of farm products. Geese and chickens from the 
Hagan farm will be seen at the coming Poultry Show in Mont- 
gomery. Mrs. Hagan also could exhibit some of the finest 
fox terriers in Alabama. 

Being a distinctly stock farm the Hagan place, that is the 
acres in cultivation, are being put out in alfalfa, hay and corn. 
There is no place for cotton on the farm. 



Denuded Timber Lands Planted 
"With Sugar Cane 



Some Things "Which Have Been Accomplished. 



^1 DEVELOPMENT, ail agricultural development, with a scope 
'^^•so wide and with possibilities so vast that thev mav not 
be appreciated at this time is shaping in the Gulf States. The 
movement now is in its inception. But the results that have 
already been attained are pregnant with the promises of 
riches. 

The movement is the planting with sugar cane of the timber 
lands which the lumber men have denuded of trees. A vast 
held is open to this endeavor. In the South, in Alabama es- 
pecially, there are millions' and millions of acres awaiting the 
coming of the farmer and his plow. The lumber man and the 
turpentine man have passed along and done their day's work 
in the woods. The scarred and seared woods now await the 
true worker, the true wealth bringer. the farmer and the pro- 
ducer. 

The lands upon which the pine woods stood will pay best 
if they are devoted to the raising of sugar cane. 

This is not the writer's opinion. It is the opinion of the men 
who have organized and who are maintaining the Inter- State 
Cane Growers' Association. It is the opinion of men who have 
lived in Baldwin Count\- and who have had enough experience 
lo know. It is the opinion of Professor B. B. Ross. State 
Chemist, and other members of the faculty of the Alabama 
Polytechnic Institute, that pine lands are especially adapted 
to the growing of sugar cane and that the richest results can 
be had from growing the crop, if industry and intelligence 
are mixed in the cultivation of the. land. 

There is, for example, the sugar cane farm of Mr. E. Smith, 
near Fairhope. The farm has only six acres of land in cane, 
but on each acre the enormous total of 660 gallons of syrup 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 25 

was raised. This syrup was sold to the trade at 50 cents a 
gallon. These figures mean that Mr. Smith received as a gross 
total $330 an acre from his sugar cane. 

Nineteen miles from Fairhope Dr. J. H. Foley, on his model 
farm, near Magnolia vSprings, has gone extensively into the 
same sort of farming. Dr. Foley has twenty-one acres in cane. 
Having a larger field Dr. Foley did not use as much fertilizer 
or employ such intensive methods of farming as did Mr. 
Smith. Yet from each of his twenty-one acres Dr. Foley is 
now securing 600 gallons of syrup. This syrup is being packed 
in air tight cans' and shipped to Chicago in car load lots. Dr. 
Foley has sold his entire crop to Chicago dealers for 50 cents 
a gallon. 

The soil is sandy, with a clay subsoil. It is the same sort 
of soil as thousands and thousands of other acres' in the pine 
belt of Alabama, a soil that is rich but not extraordinarily so, 
but which has the firmness necessary to its building up by the 
use of fertilizer. 

MODERN AND SCIENTIFIC METHODS. 

The richness of these returns' from Baldwin county sugar 
cane fields is no doubt due to the use of a modern steam mil) 
and evaporating plant. The mill which is owned by Mr. Smith 
is similar to the five-roller mills of the Louisiana cane fields. 
This mill in the first place, extracts from the cane about 20 
per cent more juice than does the old-fashioned cane mill whose 
motive power is' a mule traveling around and around in a cir- 
cle. This alone gives an increase of one-fifth to each acre, as 
compared with the old method. 

A fine description of the principles, the use and the advan- 
tages of this steam mill is furnished by Professor B. B. Ross, 
the State Chemist. Professor Ross superintended the instal- 
lation of the mill. He went to Fairhope and assisted in the 
adjustment of the machinery and watched the firs't run of 
syrup. 

In speaking of the machinery of Mr. Smith's cane farm Pro- 
fessor Ross says : 

"I was at Mr. Smith's place during a portion of the time 
in which the syrup making apparatus was being installed and 
I looked after a portion of the evaporating apparatus during 



26 THE ALABAMA OPFORTUX ITV. 

the first run whicli was made. althou_<:^h I was able to remain 
during only a portion of the syrup making season. In 'Sir. 
Smith's plant, steam is employed both for the operation of the 
mill and for the evaporation of the juice and syrup. The 
mill employed is of the most modern type and consists of two 
heavy crushing rollers for crushing the cane thoroughly, and 
three rollers' of the ordinary type for thoroughly expressing 
the juice from the crushed cane. With this mill an extraction 
of from 15 to 20 per cent, more juice can be secured than by 
the employment of an ordinary horse mill -and as the common 
horse mill frequently extracts not more than 55 to 60 per cent, 
of juice it will be noted that the relative increase in juice ex- 
traction is even greater. It will, therefore, be seen that the 
employment of a mill of this kind enables the syrup producer 
to save and utilize a large portion of the juice that usually 
goes to waste in the imperfectly crushed cane." 

WORKINGS OF THE CANE. 

The mill referred to is similar in construction to the more 
improved t\pes of five roller mills in use in Louisiana and 
Cuba. The juice runs from the mill to a small tank situated 
on a lower level and is thence pumped up to the top of a fil- 
tering box filled with Spanish moss and any suspended mechan- 
ical impurities are removed during this filtering process. The 
juice runs from this filtering apparatus to evaporators which 
are arranged in pairs, the first evaporator being on a higher 
level than the second. 

"The bottoms and sides of these evaporators are of wood, 
while coils of copper pipe, supported about an inch from the 
bottom, furnish the means of heating the juice, steam being 
admitted to the coils or shut off by simply turning a valve. 
The first evaporators are termed clarifiers' and in this part of 
the apparatus the juice is first gently boiled and the skums are 
carefully removed. The well skimmed juice is next run out 
through a valve into the larger evaporator which is located 
on a lower level, and the juice can be rapidly boiled down to 
syrup in this part of the apparatus. 

"In order to ascertain when the syrup has reached the de- 
sired destiny, a specimen of the hot liquid collected in a tall 
jar and the density can be easily ascertained by employing a 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUXITY. 27 

Beaume Hydrometer, weighed at the lower end. and having 
graduations on the stem by means of which the density can 
be readily determined. 

RESULTS OF MR. SMITH. 

"By the employment of steam heat, the temperature and the 
rate of evaporation can be regulated with great exactness, and 
a much more thorough clarification and satisfactory evapora- 
tion is secured than by the employment of the ordinary evap- 
orators, where a large proportion of the scums are frequently 
boiled down with the syrup, darkening its color and rendering 
its preservation difficult. 

"Mr. Smith secured a yield of about 660 gallons' of syrup 
per acre the season of 1903 on four and one-half acres of land, 
or a total of about 3.000 gallons of syrup. I understand fur- 
ther that he has been able to virtually secure a market for his 
whole output in advance of its production largely by reason 
of the care and skill employed in the manufacture of his syr- 
up and by reason of the uniformity in quality and composition 
of the article. 

"I might further say in this connection that a number of 
analysis of cane produced in Baldwin County and one or two 
adjacent counties in South Alabama have shown that the cane 
ip much sweeter and richer in cane sugar than the cane grown 
on the rich alluvial lands of Louisiana, and a given weight of 
this cane would of course produce a relatively larger amount 
of syrup than the same weight of the Louisiana cane. In 
addition to its excellence in quality over the Louisiana cane I 
would also say that where there is proper preparation and 
fertilization of the soil a verv heavy yield of cane per acre can 
also be obtained in South Alabama, and in Baldwin County in 
particular." 

WORK ox CANE MILL. 

This year the machinery of Mr. Smith's plant, after he had 
ground all his cane and put it into cans for shipment was taken 
up and hauled nineteen miles to the Foley place where it was 
used in grinding the large crop of Dr. Foley. The mill was in- 
stalled in its new location by Mr. Smith and who superintended 



28 TIIK ALABAMA (il'l'OKTU NlTY. 

tile first runs. On the occasion of my visit to the Foley farm 
the mill was grinding and turning into the evaporation vats 
800 gallons of cane juice daily. 

At the direction of Professor Ross Thomas Bragg, Assis- 
tant Chemist, has in December visited a number of localities 
in Baldwin County inspecting the s'yrup made in that county. 
The syrup was reported to be of fine quality and Mr. Bragg 
found that in the past year the production of syrup had largely 
increased in that county. 

The visit of Mr. Bragg to Baldwin is another indication of 
the interest of the x\labama Polytechnic Institute in the grow- 
ing of sugar cane. 

As Professor Ross says: "This department of the college 
and experiment station has for a number of years past en- 
deavored to encourage improving methods of syrup manufac- 
turing as well as an increased production of syrup and it is 
our desire to promote the growth and development of this in- 
dustry in every possible way." 

In these words' there is promise of assistance and encour- 
agement to those who may see the possibilities of cane growing 
in the southern section of the State and who may enter into it. 
If they need any other encouragement they have but to write 
to the cane growers of Baldwin who have applied intelligent 
and modern methods not only to the growing of cane, but to 
the manufacture of syrup. 



Land as it is Found in "Wiregrass Region 



^\ o paraphrase a verse of Scripture, the farm lands of the 
%» Wiregrass differ from each other as one star differs from 
another in glory. 

These lands, practically all of them, are firm and consistent 
wealth producers, lands which are not given to failure in the 
production of crops, and lands which assimilate and grow stron- 
ger with intelligent fertilizing. Naturally there are acres in the 
Wiregrass which are neither strong nor fertile, as there are 
such acres in every State and in every section, but their pro- 
portion is inconsequently small when compared to the wealth 
of strong and fertile soil that abounds in this favored section. 

The main run of land throughout the Wiregrass is clayey 
and sandy. It is oftentimes mixed, this clay and sand. And 
in this the clay or the sand so predominates that there is often 
a clay sti:eak and a sand streak running clear across the 
Wiregrass if not entirely across the State. The streaks may be 
likened to the streaks of fat and streaks of lean found in ?. 
neatly browned piece of breakfast bacon. There are men so 
familiar with the Southeast Alabama lands that they can tell 
where the red clay streak begins and where it ends, and where 
the sand lands begin and where they end. The lands with the 
more clay in them are called "stiff" lands, and they are reported 
to be of more value for farming purposes than the sandier 
soil, although both, as' the expression goes "lie well" and both 
hold fertilizers well. To "lie well" means that the land is not 
so level that it is a sand blot nor so hilly that it washes and 
rolls away with heavy rains. These lands whether they be red 
or sandy have a clay subsoil which gives them durability and 
which stores' and economizes the fertilizer the farmer entrusts 
to them. 

My attention was called to the special richness of the soil 
about Enterprise, Hartford, Dothan and Headland. The soils 
about these towns I was told were the richest of the Wiregrass. 
The distinction, which was given to these particular soils' and 
which may or may not be true and just, is not my own. It was 
pointed out and argued by merchants and by farmers of the 



32' THE ALABAMA Ol'l'ORTU N IT V. 

\Viregrass with whom I stopped and who of a certainty should 
know the soils thereabouts. 

It is worthy of note that wherever popular voice assigned 
the most fertile thereabouts would be found one of the newly 
risen and prosperous towns. Such belts of territory were given 
to Hartford, to Dothan, to Enterprise and to Headland, the 
latter being an old town that is being moved forward by new 
srength and new vitality. 

At Enterprise they claim the prettiest farming section in 
Southeast Alabama. Now, this is a patriotic claim made by 
loyal and interested people and it may be susceptible to a ref- 
utation. However that may be, it is not to be doubted thai 
about this new town is' a big garden of farms, so fertile, so 
well kept that the country never fails to make a deep impres- 
sion on all who see it. • And the visitor who has passed through 
it and failed to tell its praises when he passed out of it has 
gone unrecorded. 

This particular section is either unusually fine or it has an 
extraordinarily industrious set of farmers. The general satis- 
faction, the financial strength of the farmers of Enterprise's 
particular territory is not open for argument. At every turn 
it is impressed upon the visitor. 

An instance to emphasize this fact was brought up by an 
attorney who was familiar with the incident. An Enterprise 
farmer in January lent an Enterprise merchant the sum of 
$5,000.' This particular merchant needed the sum to carry 
forward his business. Instead of going to a bank he made his 
need known to a farmer friend with the result that he got the 
money immediately. Of course the country is not full of 
farmers who have $5,000 to lend at a moment's notice, but the 
section has in it many farmers; who have cash to pay for what 
they get and who have cotton to sell when the price suits them. 
Especially is this true. In a half day's drive through the coun- 
try one can hardly pass a farmhouse in the yard of which 
there is not a row of cotton bales, sometimes as few as two 
and sometimes: as numerous as forty. Of course, it is fre- 
quently the case that money is borrowed on the cotton, that 
some merchant or some broker is more or less interested in the 
store of cotton. Nor is the idea to be had that every 
farmer in the territory about Enterprise is absolutely free 
from debt. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 83 

A new thought on the financial condition of the section was 
brought out by Vice-President Byrd oi the Enterprise Bank- 
ing Company, who moved into Enterprise from Ozark last 
August. 

"This is of course a new country about here," said Mr. 
Byrd, "and being a new countr}^ the prosperity of the farm- 
ers is remarkable. You see most of them come in with but 
very little. Some of them had enough to make a small payment 
on their place. Others did not have that much. They, there- 
fore, had to build from the ground up. They had to buy their 
land, clear it up, establish homes and pay for it all. All this 
had to be done in the past seven years'. In fact, the average 
time the farmer of this territory has been here is four years. 
That they have done so well in so short a time is decidedly to 
their credit. That a good many of them owe some money is 
not to their discredit. Our bank is carrying a good deal of 
cotton in money loaned to farmers. We have a number of cus- 
tomers on our books who are holding from 20 to 25 bales. 
Naturally the older settlers who have been in the longest are 
in the best condition, but the entire section is much better ofif 
than ever before. An indication of this is in the fact that lands 
are held right now at the highest figures that were ever known 
in Coffee County. A few days ago a sale was made of forty 
acres of land at $25 an acre. Our farms are much smaller 
than those of other sections. The average farm here is a 
two mule farm, a farm having perhaps sixty acres in it. It 
is a hog and hominy country here. The farmers are given to 
raising syrup, potatoes, corn, meat and other things needed at 
home." 

Enterprise has grown large enough to support two prosper- 
ous banks, the Enterprise Banking Company and the First 
National Bank. 

In speaking of the physical aspect of the country about En- 
terprise, A. S. Edwards', one of the older farmers, said: "I tell 
you. it is the finest farming section of the State. And the 
country is so thickly settled that you could hardly appreciate 
it without seeing it. The immediate territory about Enterprise 
is as thickly settled as Jefferson County. There is another 
phase of the agricultural condition of this section that should 
not be overlooked and that is' the rapid way in which new farm- 
ing territory is being opened. You see we have several saw 
mills in Coffee County. One of them, the Henderson-Boyd 
3 



34 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

lumber Company, is one of the largest in Alabama. As these 
saw mills cut clown the pine forests new settlers follow them 
and put the land into cultivation. And this new land, like 
the older land, 's susceptible to any kind of improvement and 
there is no limit to what it can make." 

There are two or three show places about Enterprise. The 
most famous of them is "Arlington." the country home of 
Captain John Rawls, late of Virginia and South Carolina. 
It is a beautiful home on an excellent farm, a large and com- 
modious house with every convenience and every attention. 
The people of Enterprise say that it is one of the very finest 
country homes in all South Alabama. 

Then there is the model 'farm of Sam Smith, who has' gone 
already into the stock business. Mr. Smith's specialty is the 
raising of registered Berkshire hogs. The hogs he raises 
are too valuable to be sold as pork in the local market or in 
any other market. They are raised and sold for breeding pur- 
poses'. A pair of those hogs sell for $io and Mr. Smith has off 
and on sold several cars of them. 

When prospective land buyers come into Enterprise they are 
shown some of the successful and paying farms of the terri- 
tory, farms like those belonging to J. M. Heath, W. A. GofT, 
C. C. Alberson,, Hiram Pridgen, Jim Baker, William Ormar, 
J. W. Fleming, Bud Armor, W. H. Warren and Rush Hutch- 
cnson. And several of this' list, it is said have farm property 
worth over $10,000. 

The section about Enterprise must be a fine fruit country. 
An orchard on the Rawls place did excellently. Station Agent 
J. A. Middlebrooks of the Atlantic Coast Line is convinced 
that the sand and clay soil, the climate is equal to the best in 
Georgia or to that at Red Level where the Rumph orchard 
did so well, and where the soil so much resembles that about 
Enterprise. Mr. Middlebrooks' has gone in to demonstrate 
the possibilities of peach growing at Enterprise. He wishes 
to put the industry of peach growing on a firm footing there, 
to create an interest in it that the section has not known before. 
With this purpose in view he has planted fifty acres in peaches. 
The land he has planted is almost within the city limits' of En- 
terprise. The principal varieties that Mr. Middlebrooks has 
set out on his lands are the Arp Beauty and the Elberta. 
His extensive experiment is being watched with deep interest 
bv the communitv. 



Truck Gardening Success Around Mobile 



Climate and Soil Favor the Industry 



ACCORDING to the calendar it was November, late in Novem- 
ber, the day before Thanksgiving. 

A skirt of woods back from the bay and in the distance, all 
bedecked with bufif, red and yellow glory confirmed the cal- 
endar. 

The word of the calendar needed confirmation along the old 
Shell Road. It might have been April, May or August but 
not November. The sunlight danced upon countless waves, 
the smell of the salt sea was in the balmy breeze that blew up 
from the Gulf, the road was lined with myrtles, magnolias and 
evergreens. It was spring along the Bay Shore road, spring 
with gentle breezes and soft luxuriant sunshine. 

Over in his field a few feet from the road, a gardener in his 
shirt sleeves was industriously digging his Irish potatoes. He 
was turning the rounded potatoes, with projecting eyes, from 
the ground in great batches with a hoe. An assistant in a bat- 
tered derby hat and smoking a short stemmed pipe was run- 
ning a wheel barrow up and down in the rows, now filled with 
potatoes and now empty. 

And this in the latter part of November. 1 was told that it 
was his second crop the man was gathering, a former crop 
having been made and gathered on this same piece of land 
earlier in the year. 

As we drove out of the city I recalled that we had passed 
three car loads of cabbages, green and succulent. The cab- 
bage had been piled in immense crated cars through which their 
verdant and inviting beauty could be seen. They were for the 
Northern markets for the Christmas season. I was told too, 
that it was the second crop of cabbage for Mobile for the year. 
The first crop had been gathered in the late spring and early 
summer. 



38 THE ALABAMA OIM'ORTUNITY. 

At the end of the drive we hmched at Frederic's road house. 
Succulent spring vegetables were on the bill of fare and Fred- 
eric, proud of his ability as a gardner, exhibited the fine pota- 
toes, cabbage and other things that he had grown in the fall, 
upon the same land upon which he raised and gathered veg- 
etables in the early months of the year. Tomatoes and tur- 
nips grow on the same land twice in the same year. 

THE climate's advantages. 

That drive showed why Mobile County is one of the best 
truck gardening counties in the United States, one of the very 
best. It emphasized the fact that two crops of vegetables could 
be grown in Mobile County. It explained why truck farming 
in Mobile County had gone forward with strides and bounds. 
It showed wh}- the railroads were fostering the industry in 
every possible way and spending great sums in building it 
up and inducing other people to enter into it. The afternoon 
was explanation of why the gulf coast of Alabama is now the 
garden of the State. 

It is the climate. 

The soil is good, very good. But there is much better soil 
even for raising vegetables in some other portions of Ala- 
bama. Still this soil is peculiarly adapted to that purpose. 

S. H. Comstock, a truck gardener and a produce merchant 
put it this way: "There is something about the soil around 
Mobile which just seems to suit vegetables." 

Still tliere is as good soil and perhaps better soil in other 
portions of the State, but the other portions of the State may 
not possibly raise two crops of vegetables in one year. The 
climate makes this possible around Mobile. The truck farmer 
here is enthusiastic about the climate. It is a many-sided cli- 
mate full of goods points. 

"You see," you are told, "the climate here is even and well 
tempered. It is horizontal, very near the same throughout the 
year. There are no sharp contrasts in it. The vegetables are 
•not s-rorcled in the summer as they are further north in the 
State. The sun never gets hot enough for that. The heat 
is tempered by the sea breezes and even in hot, dry weather 
the vegetables preserve their greenness and virility. The win- 
ters are short and inconsequential. We have no real cold 
weather." 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 89 

It is the climate which differentiates ]^Iobile County and 
gives it pre-eminence in truck farming. Baldwin Comity, oj 
course, has a similar climate, but truck farming is not so well 
developed there as in Mobile County. But it is making phe- 
nominal strides in Baldwin County. Hundreds and hundreds 
of people are coming into Baldwin County each year to en- 
gage in vegetable raising. 

SOUTHERN MEN PIONEERS. 

Southern men were the pioneers' in truck farming about Mo- 
bile. They first discovered its pregnant possibilities and they 
were first to engage extensively in the industry. They out- 
number now by far the Northern men who have come to the 
coast to engage in promising industry. 

Why vegetable raising on a large scale has only been a thing 
of recent years in this section is hard to understand. In ante- 
bellum days the gardens about the picturesque old southern 
homes were most fruitful and productive. And the small 
farmer who raised a few vegetables for the Mobile market 
found it most remunerative. But it was but little thought of 
as an industry until recent years. The wealthy farmer or 
planter had his plantation up the river although he might have 
had his; home in the city. The lands lying about the city of 
Mobile was lightly thought of. Only a part of them were tilled 
and hundreds of acres from which fortunes are being taken 
in the aggregate were allowed to remain in grass and woods. 

But all this is changed now. The up-State man hardly rea- 
lizes the proportions the industry assumes until he is brought 
face to face with some of the figures that pertain to it. 

Take for instance the figures' of the Mobile and Ohio, which 
relate to the movement of vegetables. This road alone, dur- 
ing the past season, hauled 1.242 car loads of farm products. 
These are impressive figures. If the figures of the business 
done by the other roads leading out of Mobile were at hand, 
at they are not, perhaps a showing equally as ^ood might be 
made by other lines from Mobile. 

There are other figures that send home the big importance 
of truck farming in and around Mobile. There is for instance, 
the conservative estimate placed upon the value of the vege- 
table crops about Mobile. At the mimimum cost it is figured 
that this crop is worth $500,000. 



40 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

The principal part of this amount is made up of the vahic 
Qf the cabbag-e, potatoes and beans. Other vegetables' are 
raised and both sold in Mobile, and shipped, but the principal 
shipments are in these three vegetables. 

vegetable; shipping season. 

The main shipping season is between the first part of April 
and the latter part of June. The vegetables sent out from Mo- 
bile go to St. Louis, Chicago, Burlington, Minneapolis and Co- 
lumbus. Paducah, Detroit, Sioux Falls and Des Moines. 
Some cabbage are shipped out of Mobile as late as December. 

In some instances the Mobile County produce raisers sell 
direct to the merchants in these cities or they dispose of their 
produce through commis'sicwi men in Mobile and other cities. 

Mobile is itself a large consumer of vegetables. It is fortu- 
nately situated. Fresh and inviting vegetables can be bought 
cheaper, in greater quantities and in more months of the year 
there than perhaps in any other Southern State. 

The railroad officials are doing everything in their power 
to encourage and build vip the industry in Mobile and over 
South I Alabama counties. The unprecedented increase in the 
amount of shipments to the north has meant much for the rail- 
roads and with their customary foresight the officials are lay- 
ing the foundation for still larger business. 

'Now, a word or two as to their increase in truck farming 
in the country around Mobile. The figures from the books 
of the railroads show that the vegetable shipments during the 
season of 1904 was twice as large as the shipments during the 
preceding year. 

The railroads are, in accordance with their fostering policy, 
sending out advertising matter, distributing information 
among the truck raisers who may be new to the business and 
.endeavoring to secure immigrants to engage in the industry. 

BRINGING IN COLONISTS. 

In the past few months several hundred colonists have been 
brought to the southern part of the state to engage in vegeta- 
ble and fruit growing. The most of these colonists have been 
carried across the bay to Baldwin County where land can be 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 41 

had more cheaply than in Mobile County and where there is 
not so much competition and more room for development. A 
new line is now in the process of grading from Bay Minette 
through Baldwin County along the east side of the bay. The 
possibilities of vegetable raising had much to do in inducing 
the promoters' and -builders of the road to undertake this de- 
velopment. The soil in Baldwin county is similar to that of 
Mobile County and it gives great promise to the trucking in- 
dustry. 

In the meanwhile Mobile does not have to look to the future. 
The industry has arrived, so far as she is concerned. Tlie 
Louisville and Nashville, The Mobile and Ohio, the Southern 
and the Mobile, Jackson and Kansas City railroads send out 
each year increasing numbers of cars filled with vegetables for 
northern and western markets. 

"The Mobile County vegetables," said J. S. Comstock of the 
Comstock Produce Company, "bring the highest market pri- 
ces wherever they are offered for sale." 

"You see our vegetables are among the very first to be put 
upon the northern market. This gives the farmers around 
here an additional advantage over their competitors, 

"The industry is' prospering and thriving in a way that 
could hardly be credited. All the farmers who are in the 
business are planting full crops. All a truck farmer has to do 
here is to put in a fair amount of the labor in an intelligent 
manner and the soil and the climate will do the rest." 

Most of the truck farms in Mobile County are within a ra- 
dius of twenty miles of the city to the west, north and south 
of the city. The vegetable field is constantly widening. Many 
new farms have been opened within twenty-five or thirty miles 
of the city. In this section two crops of turnips, two crops of 
tomatoes and frequently two crops of cabbage and potatoes 
can be raised. The land is well fertilized each season, but it 
stands fertilizer well. It holds the fertilizer and gets the best 
results from it. 

The growing of fruit is a more recent industry in this sec- 
tion. B-ut like truck farming it is most promising. Strawber- 
ries, however, have been raised for northern and western mar- 
kets for several years. 

It is a fine strawberry country about here and the berries are 
put on the market earlier than any others except those shipped 
from central afid south Florida. 



42 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Peach growing- has in the past few years attracted great at- 
tention. Thousands of acres' of peach orchids have been put 
out and thousands of acres more will be put out in the near- 
future. These peaches are said to be the best that are offered 
for sale and they too bring the top of the market, wherever 
they are sent. Many of the recent importations of colonists 
will engage in the peach raising industry. 

This section is, in short, the garden of the State. 



Conecuh Land is Devoted to Trucking 



Evergreen Farmers are Planting Strawberries, 

Peaches and Vegetables and are Decreasing 

Acreage of Fleecy Staple 



Evergreen is upon the threshold of a new industry — an in- 
dustry whose prospect ia pleasing and whose future is promis- 
ing. This is the growing of peaches, first, the production of 
strawberries second, and the raising of vegetables for North- 
ern markets third. 

It will be a surprise to the remainder of the State that vege- 
tables have been grown for shipment out of Evergreen for the 
past twelve years'. This business, however, assumed no great 
importance until recently, but what is now only an indication 
of what the future promises. 

The great Castleberry fields in the past year attracted the 
attention of the State to the possibilities' of strawberry growing 
in the section about Evergreen. The strawberry fields of 
Conecuh County are to-day steadily encroaching upon the old 
cotton plantation. The cotton plant is giving way to the ad- 
vance of the strawberry vine and the vegetable plant. 

But peach growing is the latest industrial development here. 
Ii was inaugurated in fact in 1899, when Col. E. M. Rumph. 
the famous Georgia peach grower, planted his big orchard of 
"Slappy" peaches about here. The orchards have expanded 
around Evergreen and during the coming summer there will 
be twice as many peach trees in this section than there ever 
were before. 

Outside of cotton the Georgia peach and the Georgia water- 
melon are the best advertised agricultural products of the 
South. The Atlanta papers admit that the Georgia peach, 
the Elberta peach is the most toothsome fruit in the world. 

Probably it is', but there is something wrong with the mar- 
ket when the Elberta peach from the environs of Fort Valley 



46 THK ALAIJAM.V Ol'l'OKTL'M IN'. 

sell for only seventy-five cents a crate while the Slappey 
peaches troni the hills of Evergreen brought $1.50 a crate in 
the same market. Without disparagement to the Elberta, a 
sweet and delightful peach, the Slappey peach from the Ala- 
bama hills was preferred by the commissionmen and the cus- 
tomers in the open market. 

What particular merit is there in the Georgia soil anyhow 
that makes it the only soil which can grow perfect peaches, 
as Georgia people would have the outside world believe? This 
claim was knocked into smithereens when the Alabama 
"Slappey" and the Georgia Elber'.a met in the open market 
last May and June. And the Elberta peach grows just as 
beautiful and just as toothsome upon the Alabama hills as it 
ever did upon the hills of Georgia. 

And moreover the Alabama peach beats' the Georgia peach 
to the Northern market by a week or ten days, a great advan- 
tage. The first car'oad of peaches that went into Chicago last 
May from all over the United States, was grown, packed and 
shipped from the big Stores orchard at Dolive. some dis- 
tance south of Evergreen. True they were Elberta peaches, 
but they w'ere equal in every particular -to the Georgia Elberta 
and they reached the buyers two weeks earlier than did the 
delicate fruit from the State across the Chattahoochee. 

Peach growing is as' yet in its infancy in South Alabama, 
but unless clear headed business men who have put their 
money in the industry are wrong, it will, in the next four or 
five years, be grappling widi the Georgia industry for supre- 
macy. Rut the market is wide and there are enough buyers 
to go round. 

The men who are planting peach trees around here by the 
thousands boldly proclaim that the Alabama peach orchards 
are superior and more promising of the future than the Geor- 
gia orchards. First of all it is asserted that the soil about 
Evergreen is equal to or better than that of southwest or mid- 
dle Georgia where peach growing has assumed wide propor- 
tions. It is a sandy soil with a clay subsoil. The Evergreen 
peach growers do not hesitate to say they think their soil i= 
better tb^.n the (^.eoroia land. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 47 

CLIMATIC ADVANTAGES. 

Then comes the question of chmate. Evergreen is not so 
many miles moved from the warm waters of Mobile Bay. It 
is high above the waters' of the bay on a ridge, but the balmy 
breezes from the bay give an equable climate in the summer 
months and minimize the dang'ers of frost and freezes almost 
to nothing. They have no disastrous frosts here. 

"I have been here five years," said Edward A. Beaven, 
who is ■'. large peach grower," and we have had a peach crop 
every year that I have been here." 

One fact is reiterated, namely that peaches from Evergreen 
have been put upon the market as much as two weeks ahead 
of the Georgia peach of the same brand. 

The Rumph orchard was planted a few miles out of Ever- 
green in i88q by Colonel E. M. Rumph. of Marshalville, Ga., 
who has been called the Georgia "Peach King." The work 
was done under the auspices of the Louisville and Nashville 
Railroad, a road which has done much to foster and encour- 
age fruit and vegetable growing in South Alabama. Colonel 
Rumph after two or three years in Evergreen returned to Geor- 
gia. The orchard is' now owned by a Chicago corporation. 
It has not received the care and attention that it needed in 
the past year or two, but notwithstanding that it continues to 
give forth good returns and is a valuable piece of property. 

The orchard is made up of trees that bear the "Slappey" 
peach." Colonel Rumph brought the Slappey peach to the Ev- 
ergreen section and it has monopolized the peach orchards here- 
pbouts. It is considered the aristocrat of peaches and no other 
peaches' are considered worth while. 

"The Slappev peach" is a yellow, free stone peach of gen- 
erous proportions. It is hardy and it ripens for market 
earlier than any of the other varieties which are shipped north- 
ward. It is a good shipper. Wherever it has been put in the 
market the retainers and the commission merchants have wired 
back the order "more ;" th* "Slappey" peach growers have been 
assured by the commission men that they can sell all the 
"Slappey peaches" they can raise at a good figure 

Asked to define the excellence of the Slappey varietv a 
peach growei said: "The difference at one time was a dollar 
a crate between it and the Elberta peach. For awhile during 



48 . THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

the season, Uie Elbcrta was selling for 75 cents a crate and 
the Sioppey peach was bringing- $1.75. 

Here about Evergreen it takes a fruit tree only two or three 
years to beai. The tree is usually good for one crate at the 
end of ^hree years and at the end of five years' with anything 
like fair conditions the trees will produce three crates. 

While the Runiph orchard was the pioneer, the first to be 
planted, it is not the largest orchard in this section. While 
the Runiph orchard has 15,000 trees, there is a larger orchard 
at Red Level on the L. and N. branch road between Georgiana 
and Andalusia These orchards are planted on Owassa Ridge, 
which is said to be excellent peach soil, a location which not 
only gives the trees a firm soil, but it places them sufficiently 
iiigh to give them the altitude that is said to be necessary for 
the growing of peaches. 

GREAT ORCHARD. 

Messrs. William Cunningham and Edward A. Be'aven are 
going extensively into the growing of peaches. They pro- 
pose .to have an orchard of 50,000 trees, of which 15,000 trees 
have been planted and are a year old. The other 35,000 trees 
are being planted this fall. These, gentlemen are showing 
iheir confidence in peach growing in South Alabama by invest- 
ing $25,000 in that industry. Their orchard is located four 
and a half miles north of Evergreen. They have sent over to 
Arkansas, and s'ecured the service of a fruit expert who is a 
graduate of a school of technology and secured his practical 
training under jMcNair, the famous peach man of the Ozarks. 

Yates, Brown and Shepard have an orchard of 15.000 or 
20,000 trees ne?r Brewton. In addition there are other or- 
chards of smaller size around about Evergreen, the largest of 
which is owned bv Dr. Marcellus McCreary. 

Peach growing is in its' infan^^y here but the industr\- is a 
hcalthv infant. It is developing and expanding at a remarkable 
rate, at 1 rate which bids fair to enable the Alabama peach 
grower to throw down the gauntlet to his Georgia rival. 

vStrawberries brought big money in Evergreen last year, 
and unif ss something is wrong with the weather in the spring 
thcv will bring in more money next year. A hurried look at 
the figures of the business done by the big Castleberry Com- 



the; ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 49 

pany last year will convey some idea of the gold mine that 
has been uncovered by the South Alabama strawberry growers. 
That company last season sold ninety-nine cars of strawberries 
for $96,000. 

"I saw a car load of strawberries at Castleberry sell for 
$1,237.50," said Superintendent J. I. McKinney, "and I s'aw 
another man offered $1,225 for a car load. That's the highest 
price paid for any car load of agricultural products that were 
shipped out of the State last year. You might ship gold quartz 
out of Alabama and get more for a car load of it than for a 
car load of Escambia County strawberries, but that's about the 
only thing that would bring the money." 

The Castleberry plantation is of course the biggest single 
item in the strawberry industry in Alabama ; but Evergreen 
has been making some history in raising and shipping straw- 
berries. Out of Evergreen, a man in the business told me 
there were shipped $50,000 worth of strawberries. The Ever- 
green strawberry growers' shipped between 25,000 and 35,060 
cases last year, each case containing twenty- four cjuarts. That's 
a pretty good showing for an incidental industry and one of 
which the Evergreen community has not yet begun to boast. 

But the possibilities of strawberry raising are recognized 
by the Conecuh County people. They are not ignorant of nor 
indifferent to its value. The acreage of strawberries is being 
rapidly increased. The plants are being put in the ground at 
every convenient place and next year there will be a heavy 
increase in the strawberry shipments' from Evergreen. 

The other parts of Alabama hardly know that truck farm- 
ing is a distinct, and profitable business in Conecuh County, 
and yet they have been shipping vegetables out of Evergreen 
for the past twelve years. The growth of this business has' 
been slow, but steady. It has not gone forward in leaps and 
bounds like the business of growing strawberries and peaches. 

Tomatoes are great products' of this county. No less than 
fifteen full car loads of tomatoes were shipped out of Ever- 
green during the past season. Many other tomatoes went for- 
ward to northern consumers by express in express cars. The 
fine climate, the sandy soil, with its clay Subsoil is said to be 
ideal for the raising of vegetables. In addition to the toma- 
toes, large quantities of cabbages, beans, and radishes went 
forward last spring and summer in refrigerator cars., . 



50 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

So well have they done in the raising and selling- of vegeta- 
bles that Ethridge Bros'., of this place are going to increase 
their truck farm near here from twelve to twenty-five acres 
next spring. 

In reply to a question a member of that firm told me, "We 
estimate that $250 an acre can be easily cleared in vegetables 
around Evergreen. Vegetables pay from three to five times 
as much as the production of cotton.' " 

In like manner other truck farmers are largely increasing 
their vegetable acreage. It is deeply significant that within five 
miles of Evergreen the growing of cotton is steadily de- 
creasing and the growing of vegetables is steadily increasing. 



Model Farm One of the Sights of Baldwin. 



^^hat Can be Done W^ith Soil of South Alabama. 



J^oley's Model Farm, three miles east of Magnolia Springs, 
Jl is a perennial agricultural fair for Baldwin County. 

It is a demonstration of two things, first, the possibilities of 
the climate and soil of Baldwin, and, -second, the uses and 
advantages of methods which have been brought into the 
county by the incoming immigrants from the North. It is 
designed to show the new immigrant what the old immigrant 
could do when brains and work are mixed in the effort to get 
the best returns from a good soil and a perfect climate. The 
circulars that are sent out from the offices of the various Bald- 
win County land companies in Chicago picture in glowing 
words the beauty and healthfulness of the climate, the fertil- 
ity of the soil and the richness of the returns from the truck 
and vegetable farms. The Model Farm is proof to back the 
claims of the circulars. 

The prospective land buyer is' brought to the Foley farm 
and told, "Gaze on this picture. There is sugar cane over there, 
twenty-five acres of it. We are told that this cane is as fine 
as any grown in Louisiana. Over here you see five acres of 
cassava, the rich, new forage plant, a food for man and beast. 
We raise from four to ten tons of this forage on an acre. 
It is not grown successfully in any other part of Alabama. 
You can see for yourself how luxuriant and promising the 
peach orchards are here. In this land last year Irish potatoes 
were grown and from the crop of Irish potatoes on two acres 
we realized $211.44. After the potatoes were grown two other 
crops were raised on the same land. Take a look over the stock 
we are raising. Now look over the cow pea hay and get some 
some idea of the possibilities o"! this section." 



52 THIS ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

BEAUTIFUL PIECE) OF SCENERY. 

The farm is' a beautiful piece of scenery, even in December. 
There is not so much difference down here in the appearance of 
things in May and in December. The s'ugar cane crop is being- 
liarvested and this to the Southern man indicates more than 
anything "^Ise that the year on the farm is drawing to a close. 
There is a winter garden in front of the farm house all rich 
and green. It is confirmation of the statement made by the 
immigrants that they have vegetables all the year around. 
The garden is flourishing now with cabbages, turnips and multi- 
plying ojiions'. The house, a modern two-story cottage, sits 
in a grove of trees. Behind the house are the big barns, the 
extensive yards which accommodate eight fine mules and two 
horses that do the work on the farm. A herd of cattle is there 
feeding eagerly on a pile of casava roots. Dr. Foley has not 
yet introduced fine blooded cattle in Baldwin County, although 
it is announced that it is his purpose to do s'o. 

The cattle on the farm now are of the hardy piney woods 
breed which has been identified with Baldwin County for 
years and years. The immense barn is now packed and 
jammed with tons of alfalfa and cow pea hay, although the 
crop has been gathered for several months. What has been 
used in feeding the stock has hardly made an impression upon 
the big store of forage. 

The farm has produced more forage than the stock on it can 
possibly have use for. The surplus store will be used to help 
out the immigrants who come to Baldwin County to make 
a fresh start with nothing ahead. 

Behind the spacious barnyard are the naturally rich and 
the heavily fertilized acres' which produced the crops of pota- 
toes. Sweet and Irish, and the string beans and velvet beans. 
The land has been stripped of the remains of these crops and 
turned over for an early start in a few weeks on the crop for 
next year. 

SUGARCANE FIELD. 

The sugarcane field of twenty-one acres is an imposing sight. 
The field contains three varieties, the purple, or red cane, the 
green cane and the Japanese cane. The Japanese cane was 



THE ALADAMA OPPORTUNITY. 53 

planted as an experiment in sugar cane growing. The exper- 
iment has been fairly satisfactory, but it does not match up 
with its red and green rivals. A modern steam evaporating plant 
of syrup making machmery has just been installed. 

The cane yield is rich and fine. They have some negroes 
gathering the crop who were brought to Alabama from the 
sugarcane plantations of Louisiana, and who say that this 
upland cane is as good as the cane fields of Louisiana show. 

A private saw mill has been established and is' operated by 
Dr. Foley. The saw mill is private in that there is no market 
for its output except in the colony, which its owner has es- 
tablished. The product of the mill is used on the model farm 
or by the immigrants in the erection of their new, but modest 
houses. 

The predominant feature about the model farm, the thing 
that most impresses the observant visitor, is the big cassava 
field. On first glance it looks an old field filled with sas'safras 
bushes from three to six feet high. A closer look shows that the 
vegetation could not be sassafras bushes because the ground 
has' evidently been cultivated for some purpose, and the second 
second look shows too that the bushes have been carefully 
planted in check rows equally distant, even as a peach orchard 
would be planted. 

The cassava bushes are still wearing abovit half of the leaves 
of their summer vegetation although the leaves which remain 
show in their red and yellow covering the evidence of some 
cold wind, and the trace of nipping frost that has fallen once 
in Baldwin County. 

RICHNESS IN THE ROOTS. 

In the cassava field that which is above ground is of little 
value. In fact except those bushes whose stems are cut up an 1 
banked like sugar cane for seed for the next crop, all that part 
of the cassava field which is above the ground is worth noth- 
ing to the grower. The richness of the cas'sava bush is its 
roots beneath the gfound. 

The cassava plant in its way is both like the corn and the 

sugarcane plant and it is cultivated in much the same way 

these plants are raised. Cassava is planted in check rows from 

, four to six feet apart. The plant when it is allowed to mature 



54 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

in a tropical climate or in a climate very near the tropical, 
bears a pod and a berry which contains its seed for the next 
year. But in Baldwin County the seed is not depended upon 
for the next year's crop. It is feared that frost will come 
before the seed is fully matured. 

HARVESTING THE CASSAVA. 

The cassava roots are kept in the ground just as they grew 
until they are needed. The bushes and the roots of the plants 
are left undisturbed until the succulent roots are needed for 
stock food. When feed for the horses, the mules, and the 
cows is needed, the hired man goes out to the cassava fielo 
and with a sharp sudden pull jerks the plant fro mthe ground. 
This is done with little effort. 

The amount of roots on a plant is astonishing. It looks iike 
when a plant is jerked fro mthe ground that a whole bushel 
of roots come with it. The yield of one plant would indicate 
that the whole field vmderground was honeycombed with 
roots'. The roots have a thin covering of brown. The appear- 
ance of the interior of the root is very like that of a turnip. 
It is as soft and fully as. juicy when the roots are first taken 
from the ground. 

In this state the roots are a great delicacy to stock of all 
sorts. 

If the cassava roots are permitted to remain in the air for 
several weeks they grow hard and the stock finds them unpal- 
atable. For this reason the roots are pulled from the ground 
as they are needed. They are run through a specially designed 
machine which cuts them into small pieces three or four inches 
in length. These pieces are gathered up and dumped into the 
feed trough where they are eaten eagerly by horse, mule, cow 
or sheep. 

Cassava has' a much higher percentage of strength giving 
qualities than corn. It is said by its admirers to be the best 
stock food that can be grown. Conservative men say that its 
increasing growth in Florida is solving the forage problem 
m that State, a State where corn and other grain does not grow 
so well as farther north. It has enthusiastic admirers on the 
Florida farms. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 55 

A BRAZILIAN PRODUCT. 

The plant is a Brazilian product, introduced several years ago 
in Florida to take the place of corn that could not be grown 
there with any great profit. Its growth has not yet assumed 
any great proportions in Baldwin County. In fact it has just 
been introduced by Dr. Foley within the past two years. It is 
a delicate plant, one that requires the same sort of climate 
and the same sort of weather as does the tomato plant. 

Cassava is widely used for human food, too. Much of the 
commercial tapioca is made of cassava. Cassava grown in 
Baldwin County is made into pies all the year around. On 
its first eating a cassava pie is mistaken for a coaconut cus- 
tard. 

The United States Department of Agriculture is encourag- 
ing the making of starch from cassava. Experiments by the 
department have shown that cassava yields 25 per cent, of its 
own weight in starch. The same bulletin from the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture decares that "doubtless pork can be pro- 
duced on les's cost from cassava than from any other source." 
The bulletin declares, however, that it is the experience of the 
experiment stations that cassava cannot be successfully grown 
in a climate that has not at least eight months absolutely free 
from frost. 

Dr. Foley is of the opinion that the southern portion of 
Baldwin County is as fine a field for the growing of cassava 
as any part of Florida. He expects to see the day when there 
will be cassava mills for the manufacture of starch, glucose 
and other products of the plant as there are today in Florida. 

While the five acre field of cassava is the distinct feature 
of the Foley Model Farm Dr. Foley and his manager John C. 
Lehr are almost equally proud of land upon which they raised 
during the present year three different crops. They point with 
especial pride to two acres from which they gathered from 
the first crop enough potatoes to sell for 211.44. The land was 
then planted in cow peas for the production of cow pea hay. It 
i? said to have produced nearly two tons of this hay to the acre. 
One of the two acres was then planted again in Irish potatoes 
and the other was planted in sweet potatoes. A generous 
crop of each was grown. Just how much the last crop will 
amount to cannot be estimated as both the Irish and the sweet 
potatoes are still' in the ground and are being dug as they are 
needed for sale or use. 



Growth of the W^iregfrass is an 
Alabama W^onder. 



^Y HE man of less than middle age can recall, if he remem- 
\lf bers easil}^ when the counties comprising the rich Wire- 
grass were almost contemptuously called the "cow counties." 
He hears in this year 1905, these same counties, this same Wire- 
grass, termed by its admirers the "richest agricultural section 
of Alabama." 

In a bare quarter of a century these counties have risen in the 
public mind from the low place of the "cow counties" to the 
high elevation of one of the rich agricultural sections of the 
State. It was' not a sharp, sudden growth. There is no rush of 
settlers, no hurrying in of farmers, no Oklahoma booming, 
nothing of that sort about the transformation. 

Nor did the railroads make the Wiregrass. Its develop- 
ment was pronounced, its future was assured when the rail- 
roads came in. The fulfillment of the Wiregrass's promis'e 
was already in sight, when the railroads pushed in, to share 
the prosperity. It was a long neglected spot, that section of 
Alabama lying in the southeast corner of the State between 
the irregular triangle formed by the junction of the Florida and 
Georgia lines. It was innocent of railroads until twenty years 
ago, when the Central threw its Eufaula and Clayton branch 
down to Ozark and when the Alabama Midland was built 
out from Montgomery to the Georgia line. Then in late years 
the Louisville and Nashville pierced the Wiregrass through 
and through with its Georgiana and Graceville. 

RAILROADS PUSH IN. 

The Central fully appreciating the richness of the field, con- 
tinued to move forward again with its lines out of Ozark and 
out of Troy. So that now the Wiregrass is sufficiently inter- 
cepted and intersected with transportation facilities to assure 
maintenance of its prosperity assured for the future. 



' ■»*- 



■ci#*l 



v^»" -. y- : 



^^ 















:^:;\^^v^.;i 



THE ALABAMA OPrORTUNlTY. 59 

A railroad is not a philanthropic institution. It is 
not given to making experiments, or to developing 
wildernesses. The only reason a railroad is ever run- through 
a wilderness is to connect two rich sections which may be far 
or near each other. When branch lines are thrown out, there 
musi: be somethnig on which both the branch and the system 
are to feed 

The ap-'ic ".lUral dLvelopment of the Wiregrass had as- 
sumed notable proportions before the surveyors and the track 
lii\ ers went to work. Turpentine men and lumber men were, 
as they have ever been in the development of South Alabama 
and South Georgia, the advance guard of progress. The tur- 
pentine men were blazing their way through the interminable 
acres with their short, sharp axes and gathering their harvests 
of white encrusted pearls from the trees. The lumbermen were 
leveling the pine forests and shipping out over log roads cargo 
after cargo of white and shining pine. But these were only 
industrial caravansaries, which stopped for a night and a day 
and passed on. 

Progress never came to a section on a log road. Nor was 
it ever brought in cooped up in a turpentine still. 

THE settler's WAGON. 

The white canvas wagon cover of the incoming settler is 
the flag of hope for the County and for the State. Such a 
wagon with its canvass covering,forming a protection for a 
half dozen tow-headed children, a couple of 'possum dogs 
tied with a rope to the rear axle, an assortment of pots and 
kettles decorating the hind end of the wagon, driven by a man 
with a bushy beard and cow-hide boots would, in the minds of 
many people cut but a sorry figure on Dexter Avenue. Yet a 
replica of this outfit so imperfectly described might well stand 
for an emblem of Alabama's growth. More than any other 
single thing, unless it is the locomotive, it has hauled brain and 
brawn, progress and prosperity into Alabama., and in doing so 
it surmounted more obstacles than the locomotive, and the 
locomotive only came along the way the canvas wagon has 
prepared. 

In such a way came the development of the Wiregrass. 
In such a way was brought the foundation of its prosperity. 



60 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

For that which made the present pride of the Wiregrass were 
the fanners who came into Dale, Geneva, Henry. Coffee, Hous- 
ton, Covington and Crenshaw Counties. Pike might properly 
be considered a part of the Wiregrass, but its agricultural de- 
velopment, its complete settlement was of an older date. 
Pike, like Barbour and Henry, furnished many of the 
settlers. Others came from Middle Alabama, from 
North Alabama, from Georgia, Carolina, Tennessee and as 
far north as Kentucky. 

WINNING THE COUNTRY. 

They were poor men — these settlers. They hadn't much of 
anything except children, dogs and hope. All they had came 
in their wagons. 

The riches of the Wiregrass were grown within its own 
limits. Its prosperity is its own product. Its' development 
came from within and from itself. Practically nothing was 
brought to it. The settlers came in, unhitched their teams, 
staked out their farms and knocked together some sort of shack 
that they could occupy for a time. The inviting, comfortable 
homes, the fertile fields, the bank account, the seven or eight 
bales' patiently waiting for cotton to rise, are the surplus 
Vi'hich thrift and energy has wrested from the soil of the 
Wiregrass. 

This thought was impressed upon me by C. C. Johnson, a 
leading merchant of Geneva. 

"All that our farmers have," he said, "was raised and pro- 
duced right here. You see they had nothing when they came 
here. Some of them barely had a wagon to move in. Most of 
them homesteaded their lands. I am speaking particularly of 
those who came in twenty or twenty-five years ago. Once in 
here they went to work and now bank accounts are the rule 
rather than the exception. You would be surprised to see some 
of the many comfortable homes about Geneva and I hardly 
know of a farmer who is not holding some cotton for a better 
price. And ?11 of this belongs to men who came in here with 
practically nothing." 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 61 

INCREASE OF LAND VALUES. 

The increase of land values, even in the past fifteen years 
has' been nothing short of phenomenal in and around Geneva. 
Much of this land has increased a thousand per cent. As 
indications of the ways in which land values are rais- 
ing in Geneva and adjoining counties the interested visitor 
comes across various impressive facts. The Geneva Reaper of 
last week, for instance, carried a local story of the return of 
Taylor Hutto, who left here over a quarter of a century ago, 
to move to Talladega. At the time Mr. Hutto moved away the 
family owned eighty acres of wooded land a few miles from 
town. When other holdings were sold this land was not con- 
sidered of enough importance to warrant an effort to sell it. 
It was thought that probably the land would bring at that time 
about 75 cents an acre. 

Tales' of the growth of Southeast Alabama having reached 
Mr. Hutto, he thought that the eighty acres of land he left in 
the woods might be worth the trouble -of a trip to Geneva. 
He found on coming here last week that the land was easily 
worth $io an acre. And noting not only the substantial growth 
of Geneva, but the rapid settlements of the country districts 
which he had left almost a wilderness Mr. Hutto decided that 
the land could be well let alone so that it might continue to in- 
crease in value. 



Small Farms and Their Owners 
Wealth Producers. 



TITHI ^^^ should new and thriving towns dot the face of the 
^^■^^* earth in the Wiregrass, why should the smoke that 
ascends from the contented country homes form a chain of 
signals of satisfaction for miles on miles, why should the coun- 
try be so markedly contented, the towns so emphatically new 
and so emphatically prosperous, when the same contentment 
and the same pronounced prosperity is not so manifest in the 
rural regions of the Black Belt? 

The prairie lands are undeniably richer than the farm lands 
of the pine woods. The fertilizer needed in the Wiregrass is 
not needed in the prairie? What is this difference that gives 
the prize of prosperity to the Wiregrass? 

The answer is simple. The small farm is the better thing 
for the country than the big plantation. The small farm is an 
infinitely better producer than the negro tenant. The small 
farmer is a wealth producer. The negro tenant is a wealth 
d; "^i -oyer anywhere else on earth except on a Black Belt plan- 
tation and even then he barely gives to the community more 
than he takes from it and this little his landlord and advancer 
gets. He is not a wealth destroyer on the prairie lands' because 
the prairie acres are practically indestructible. The negro ten- 
ant does as' much as he can to the Black Belt acres, but they 
are proof against hard usage. On other soil the negro tenan: 
can do his worst. As a soil impoverisher the average negro, 
farming on shares', is in a class by himself. 

ORIGIN OF WIREGRASS RICHES. 

It is the industrious white farmer cultivating his 60 acres, 
his 80 acres or his 160-acre farm who forges the prosperity of 
the Wiregrass. He is the map who came in here in the early 
davs and homesteaded his land or who bought it at an insig- 
nificant figure when land was selling in the Wiregrass at a 
doHar and two dollars an acre. This man's farm, closely 
watched, closely tilled, with its smoke house, its plethoric corn 



the; ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 65 

crib, its stock filled stable yard is the basis upon which the 
prosperity of this section has' been erected. He was the pred- 
ecessor of the railroads and without knowing it or intending it, 
he made the railroad possible. 

He it was who revived Geneva and gave it a healthy ex- 
panding life. It was he who built Geneva's rival, Hartford, 
in the midst of a pine forest and then transformed its country 
into a .farming paradise. He and the lumbermen built the 
town of Slocumb overnight, a town that jumped into being 
almost in an instant with 700 people, and he created the new 
and prosperous towns of Black and Samson as easily as he 
took the one store of Coffee Springs and transformed it into 
a commercial center with rich hopes of the future. 

It has been before noted that railroads do not scatter farms 
through a wilderness. The farms must first be there before 
the railroads can be persuaded to come. 

BUILDING OF TOWNS. 

But this one thing the railroads will do when the farmers 
have prepared a way and given a reas'on for their coming. 
The railroads scatter towns throughout their territory. They 
furnish a center for the congestion of the commercial en- 
deavors of the farming sections. They provide a place for the 
transaction of business, for the selling of farm produce and the 
buying of dry goods, sugar. 

Geneva County, for so many years without a railroad, is 
now split by two. The Georgiana and Graceville branch of 
the Louisville and Nashville enters Geneva County near its 
northwestern corner and after passing through the county 
goes into Florida. It crosses the line of the Central of Geor- 
gia at the lively town of Samson. Samson is a lusty youngster 
just two years old, but with a population of 400. Within eight 
miles' of Geneva is the town of Black, one year old, and with 
a population of one hundred. High Note is not far away. 
It is only a year old, and it, too, has a population of 100. 

Through the northern portion of the county runs the Central 
of Georgia, which is the extension of that company's line from 
Columbia to Florida. The Central enters Geneva County 
near its northeastern corner and after intersecting the north- 
ern portion dips down and leaves the county near the south- 
western corner. 



66 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

The Central has a wealth of small towns along its' line, all 
grown up in the past five years. The largest town along its 
line in Geneva County. is Hartford with an estimated population 
of 1,500. Just east of Hartford is Slocomb, a little over three 
years old, and with a population of 700 souls. West of Hart- 
ford is Cofifee Springs, five years' old as a town and having 
within its borders 500 people. Other promising stations have 
sprung up at Malvern and Bellwood, at which latter place J 
hardwood plant has been established and is now in operation. 

It is always to be borne in mind that these places have been 
born and have attained their growth within the last decade 
except Geneva. But even Geneva has' taken on new life with 
the coming of the small and industrious farmer and his friend 
and ally, the railroad. The climate about Geneva is superb. 
The county's climate is perhaps not exceeded anywhere in 
the United States. Time was when the opinion was held fur- 
ther north that there was nothing but poor and sandy lands 
in Geneva County. Sandy the lands are, but the sand is' mixed 
with clay. But poverty stricken the lands are not. Were they 
poor lands they could not be made to produce the fine crops 
that they have grown. Were they so poor the industrious 
farmer could not have established himself and made the money 
he has. Were they so poor they certainly could not have been 
brought to their present high state of cultivation as' they have 
been in many instances. 

Take, for instance, the farm of Mennice Menefee, a farmer 
living near the town of Geneva. Mr. Menefee had a brag 
patch of cotton on which he tried to see just what could be 
done by the judicious and intelligent use of fertilizer. From 
this acre he gathered 1,400 pounds of lint cotton or very nearly 
three bales of cotton. The average yield an acre for his en- 
tire cotton crop was decidedly good, for on twenty-eight acres 
he gathered thirty-four bales averaging in weight 559 pounds. 
Of course he fertilized, but he had to mix the fertilizer in mak- 
ing his crop with discretion and industry. He grew other 
things equally as well ; for instance, 700 bushels of corn ofif thir- 
ty-two acres, and twelve barrels of cane syrup from three acres, 
with 20,000 stalks left over, part of which is to be used for seed, 
the coming farm year. Then he raised hogs and produced 
nearly everything that he needed for his family's use. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 67 

Now Mr. Menefee is pointed out as a sample of the small 
farmer and his value to his section. A dozen or more similar 
instances of farmers starting with nothing and prospering could 
be cited. Living near Geneva is D. W. Johnson who started 
on nothing, and who has now 700 acres free from debt, a nice 
bank account ; Jack Jones with several hundred acres and 
money in the bank; Martin Sellers with 580 acres and money 
ahead. But the list could be prolonged indefinitely, in citing 
as instances men who come to the county with practically noth- 
ing and who have attained a state of financial satisfaction and 
independence. 

Undeniably the most remarkable growth of the county is 
here at Hartford. On the site of the town ten years ago there 
was nothing but woods. Nine years ago, the town began 
with a steam mill and a Methodist parsonage for a circuit 
rider. Today it is a beautiful and most inviting town. 



The Largest Cane Field in State of Alabama. 



^Y HE largest cane field in Alabama is in Geneva County 
%• and within eight miles of the court house. 

The largest syrup producer of the entire State is ex-sheriff 
George W. Black of this county. Mr. Black is the proprietor 
of the big cane field. It is on his farm at Black, a station on the 
Louisville and Nashville railroad, named in his honor. Here 
en this farm, which is a model of its kind, Mr. Black has nearly 
fifty acres in cane. Fifty acres to the uninitiated does not seem 
anything big or important, but when fifty acres are devoted 
to cane growing and syrup making it means much more than 
if that much land was in cotton. 

Moreover, Mr. Black has introduced the idea of having his 
tenants grow cane on shares as they would cotton. 

Primarily it means more in that the returns from the land 
will be assuredly larger. And, secondly, it means more trouble 
in harvesting and in marketing than if cotton had been grown. 

The industry of growing cane for sugar or for syrup is yet 
in its infancy in Alabama. Its real progress has been made in 
the past two years. It is only within the past two years that 
modern machinery has been introduced, and it is only within 
the past two years' that syrup has been made to sell in other 
markets. Heretofore the making and selling of syrup has: been 
purely a local industry. The farmer would plant an acre or 
a half acre on his bottom land or in the little valley at the 
head of some branch. The idea was deep-rooted that sugar 
cane had to be panted on lowland or it would not grow at 
all. The erroneous idea has been completely dissipated now. 
It has been proven that the sweetest and the best cane is 
grown on uplands. 

THE STEAM ROLLERS. 

The old cane mill, with its rollers five feet from the ground, 
its lever not unlike that of the old-fashioned cotton gin, and the 
old mule plodding around and around all day in a never ending 
circle, is a familiar memory to the man whose boyhood days 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 69 

was spent on the farm. It was a picturesque sight, this old 
cane mill, when it was at -work in the short cane season, but, 
like the old style cotton gin it is destined to disappear from the 
earth. "Efficiency," "utility," the eternal cry for these things 
has sounded the doom of the old style mule power cane mill 
and its day is closing. 

It did not extract a sufficient amount of juice. That 
was what w^as the matter with it. They went to putting 
up steam rollers for cane mills in Louisiana. These rollers 
were in three sets and fastened close together. Instead of the 
mule and his tread mill a puffing and noisy but powerful station- 
ary engine was used. 

The boiler of this stationary engine had three or four ob- 
jects in life. In the first place it operated the close grinding 
cane rollers, then it furnished the steam to force the cane juice 
from its tank through a pipe into the boiling vats, the steam 
then filled the coils of pipe for the cooking of the syrup. This 
is the sort of machinery that Mr. Black has established on his 
sugar farm. 

OLD VERSUS THE NEW. 

The per cent, of juice that the old-fashioned tread miM rollers 
squeezed out of the cane was the subject of an interesting dis- 
cussion at the recent meeting of the Interstate Cane Growers 
Association at Montgomery. Dr. H. W. Wiley, of the National 
Agricultural Department was of the opinion that the old style 
roUers' ext'-acted 50 per cent, in juice, of the weight of cane. 
\V. B. Roddenberry, the famous syrup raiser of Cairo, Ga., did 
not concede this. He argued that when the mill started its 
Cay's work all screwed up it no doubt got out 50 per cent, of 
the juice, but before night invariably the screws were loosened 
?nd the mill was squeezing out only 30 per cent, in juice, of 
the weight of the cane. 

But there is no room for argument on the advantages of the 
close set steam operated rollers, as long as they extract 80 per 
cent, and sometimes more than that. 

It is the intelligent use of modern machinery, the steam 
rollers, the coiled steam pipes and all that which has made ex- 
Sheriflf Black's Syrup producing so successful. 



70 THK ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

POLITICS AND FARMING. 

I had a talk with P. C. Black, Probate Judge of Geneva 
County, a son of ex-Sheriff Black, and interested with him in 
the production of syrup. Let it be understood that the Black 
family is a power in Geneva County politics. In the^year he 
finished his 'term as Sheriff, George W. Black had the grati- 
fication of seeing his son elected Probate Judge of the county. 
The son, P. C. Black, is one of the youngest, if not the young- 
est. Probate Judge in the United States. He is withal, a frank, 
sincere and likable young fellow, highly esteemed throughout 
the whole county. 

Judge Black told me how his' father became interested in 
the growing of cane on a small scale, to later take it up as a 
money crop. 

"He, of course, had heard of the marked success of W. B. 
Roddenberry, in syrup making at Cairo, Ga.," said Judge Black. 
"Before entering into it extensively he wanted to get in touch 
with modern methods. He therefore went over to Cairo and 
spent some time watching the operation of Mr. Roddenberry's 
modern plant with its late and useful machinery. He came 
back to Geneva and ordered an exact duplicate of it piece for 
piece and part for part. At the time the machinery was put 
up it was the only set in Alabama. I understand that similar 
machinery has been installed by E. Smith, near Fairhope. 

THE machinery's ADX'ANTAGE. 

"The advantages of this machinery are too plain to need 
discussion. In the first place, the steam rollers crush out 80 
per cent, or more of the weight of the cane in juice. The cane 
stalks are often run twice through these rollers. The juice is 
tliCn forced into the vats by steam. From the first vat the juice 
passes into the skimming vat, where the impurities rise to the 
surface to be taken off and thrown aside. The juice then 
passes into the finishing vat where it almost becomes syrup, 
and where some remaining but final impurities are removed. 
Finally it enters the last vat and becomes syrup for the market. 

"The syrup is put in the tin cans piping hot and thus sealed. 
The cans have first been sterilized and there is no danger of 
the syrup either fermenting on the other hand or sugaring on 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 71 

the Other. As an additional precaution against fermenting 
and sugaring the syrup is carefully tested by a Bohme ther- 
mometer as it proceeds through the vats. Each of these vats 
as I have before stated, have their bottoms filled with galva- 
nized iron steam pipes' and the heat of each vat can be gradu- 
ated when it is found necessary to increase or decrease the 
heat. 

"Most of our syrup is sold in barrels, but a good deal goes 
out in the market in sealed cans. The sealed syrup brings a 
much better price than the syrup in barrels'. We sold last sea- 
son the sealed syrup for 50 cents a gallon. Some of the bar- 
relled syrup sold as low as 28 cents. Our price, therefore, 
ranged from 28 to 50 cents a gallon." 

WORK FOR A MARKET. 

"How did you get a market for your syrup?" I asked Judge 
Black. This was thought to be an important question inas- 
much as the Cane Growers' at their Montgomery meeting, 
devoted much of their time to its discussion and all of them 
agreed that the successful marketing of their product was the 
greatest problem w^hich confronted the cane growers. 

"Well, we didn't sit still and wait for the market to come 
to us." replied Judge Black, "syrup from Alabama is com- 
paratively a new sort of merchandise and it needing pushing. 
We found buyers mostly through correspondence. We wrote 
many letters in urging our goods upon the merchants and 
these letters were successful in bringing results in the main. 
Moreover, my brother and I took the road several times to 
open up new markets and again we were successful. The let- 
ters and the personal talks were so effective that we have sold 
as high as two carloads of barrelled syrup at one time." 

"What sort of yield did you have from your cane fields?" 
was the next question. 

"Satisfactory, verv satisfactory," replied Judge Black. 
"We had something over forty-five acres' in cane and we got 
upwards of 6,000 gallons of syrup. I should say that we av- 
eraged 360 gallons to the acre. We probaby got an average 
price of 40 cents a gallon. So, you see, the financial returns 
from our syrup crop were much better than cotton and alto- 
gether satisfying." 

"How did vou fertilize?" he was asked. 



72 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

HF.AVY FERTILIZATION, 

"We fertilized heavily, responded Judge Black. "Heavy 
fertilization is needed in these sandy lands where cane is 
grown. We used form 600 to 1,200 pounds of fertilizer which 
is heavy ferti'ization even for this section, but we found it 
paid. In fertilizing we used cotton seed and cotton seed 
meal." 

On the Black farm a much longer grinding season was had 
than is usual in Alabama. They were grinding cane there 
for sixty days. This' was done by windrowing a large part of 
the crop, that is by cutting down the stalks and covering them 
with the tops to guard them from the early frosts. 

The Black farm is unusual, too, in that cane is grown on 
shares bv the tenants like cotton is grown on other farms and 
plantations. The tenants are furnished with seed and after 
thev have cultivated it with their labor the profits are divided 
when the expenses have been shared. The cultivation of cane, 
];owever. is only given to the better of the tenants on the 
Black u'ace. These are encouraged to plant six acres of cane 
to the mule. The tenants have found that cane growing on 
shares is a better thing than cotton growing on shares, when 
i: comes to monetary returns. 



CAPT. JOHN C. W'EBb's EXPERIENCE WITH ALEALFA. 



Capt. John C. Webb, of Demopolis. Ala., writes us concern- 
ing his Alfalfa field as follows: (the field mentioned is shown 
in the photograph). "That field of Alfalfa was cut April 19th, 
some twenty-five acres, an average of 2 1-2 tons per acre first 
cutting. I cut it seven times that year. I cut my Alfalfa from 
six to eight times each year, and on that field I have never made 
less than $100.00 per acre per year, and sometimes $150.00 
clear. I have never sold any Alfalfa hay for less than $15.00 
per ton. This is the greatest forage feed on the face of the 
earth. I am now seeding sixty acres and each year will in- 
crease my acreage. Anything will eat it greedily ; grown as 
hay I have made a crop of corn and cotton and other farm 
crops, feeding only on this hay, not feeding a grain of anything 
else on my place. Year before last this occurred with me and 
I did six weeks of plowing in the summer on this feed without 
one grain of corn or oats, and my team of twenty-two mules 
looked as well or better when I laid by my crop in August as 
when I cut off the grain ration. I wish to say that the land 
above referred to was made very rich and of course this is the 
key to all good crops." 

John C. Webb^ Demopolis, Ala. 



Alfalfa May be the South's Salvation. 



***1F ^ cotton remains at 6 cents, the salvation of this country 

■' will be the growing of alfalfa." 

I got this new thought from a successful Montgomery 
County farmer, a man who raises both alfalfa and stock. And 
it might be incidentally mentioned that wherever alfalfa is 
there, too, is stock and cattle, and wherever good stock and 
cattle are being raised for profit, there, too, will quickly come 
the growing of alfalfa. The two seem inseparable. 

But the possibilities of alfalfa, the remarks to its value 
as a substitute for cotton, interested a man whose business it 
ir to ask questions, to gather information and set it down as 
acurately as he may. There has been much written about 
alfalfa in Southern newspapers in recent months, but the av- 
erage man, the average newspaper reader, has a hazy idea of 
what it is. He is not quite sure whether it is a new breakfast 
food, or the name of a town in which the Japanese and Rus- 
sians fought a bloody battle. The well-informed farmer, and, 
by the way, it is not generally known that the intelligent farmer 
has a wider store of general information than the average in- 
telligent business man, the well informed farmer knows that 
alfalfa is one of the richest, one of the most fruitful of all 
forage plants. 

It is a Western plant, a sort of a Mormon product, for it 
is said to thrive best in the states' like Idaho and Utah, where 
the Mormons are numerous, thrifty and poyerful, and it is 
also vigorous, prolific and profitable in the far Western States 
of California. In those sections out West where irrigation 
i.: an important agricultural factor, alfalfa does especially well, 
so well that it has been said that this forage plant does best 
on irrigated land. The yield of alfalfa hay on irrigated acres 
in the West runs between eight and ten tons. 

GROWING OF ALFALFA, 

It is one of the several experimental ideas of agriculture that 
has gained a footing in Montgomery County in the very recent 
past. It has not been grown in the county longer than three 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 77 

or four years. Albert Dillard, an ex-newspaper man and 
a successful farmer, was the pioneer alfalfa grower, so far 
as this county is concerned. Mr. Dillard first planted it, ^nd he 
sang its praises so convincingly to his neighbors that many 
became deeply interested in the growing of this fine forage. 
Every year the alfalfa acreage about Montgomery has been 
practically doubled. The largest grower is J. A. Barnes on 
the Woodley Road. Mr. Barnes this year has about lOO acres 
iv alfalfa. He has been steadily increasing his acreage of 
alfalfa, and in doing this, steadily increasing the number of 
cattle and their importance to their owner. 

This forage is now being grown on all the farms southeast 
of the city where stock and cattle are being raised. It is the 
forage plant on the Barnes place, the Brooks place, the Jones 
place and the Hagan stock farm. It is a fine help in stock 
raising. 

Mr. Barnes, like Mr. Dillard is a great admirer of the west- 
ern forage plant. He is thoroughly versed in its nature, its 
habits and the conditions under which it prospers best. He is 
too, a great believer in its ultimate benefit to middle Alabama. 

"The advantages of alfalfa over Johnson grass and other 
hay," says Mr. Barnes, "are numerous and convincing. In the 
first place it requires practically no cultivation. Once plowed 
in, one sowing of alfalfa will last for tw-enty years with an 
occasional harrowing. Johnson grass has to be plowed every 
two or three years. 

"Then the yield of alfalfa is at least 33 per cent greater than 
the yield from the same amount of land planted in Johnson 
grass'. In fact the increase will almost average one-half more 
than the yield of Johnson grass. An acre of land that makes 
a ton and a half of hay from Johnson grass will make three 
tons of alfalfa hay. 

MUCH LARGER YIELD. 

"A ton of Johnson grass hay is worth now $10 to $11 a ton. 
Alfalfa hay can be sold for $15 a ton easily. It is not difficult 
to figure out which is the best money proposition. 

Vlt is not generally known, but it is a fact that alfalfa thrives 
when planted on the same land with Johnson grass. The two 
combined make an extremely fine stock food. Yhen the 



78 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

two are grown together the )'ield of an acre of land is increased 
at least a third. In my opinion a farmer could get rid of over- 
plus of Johnson grass by sowing the land with alfalfa. 

"One of the strongest and best reasons vt^hy alfalfa should be 
grown in this section is the fact that it ripens for cutting about 
May I. This' gives the farmer the chance to feed his stock dur- 
ing the plowing season with a forage raised during the same 
year. If his corn supply is running short along the first of May 
when his heaviest plowing season is upon him his alflafa hay 
will meet the difficulty. In a report sent cut from the Union- 
town Experiment Station, Professor Duggar stated that he had 
fed the work stock during the heaviest plowing, season on 
alfalfa to the exclusion of corn. This same thing I did last 
spring for three weeks. For three weeks the stock that did the 
plowing was fed on nothing but alfalfa and they thrived upon it. 

"It is a well known and accepted fact that alfalfa is the 
best food for dairy cattle. It has more milk producing prop- 
erties than any other forage known to us. It makes a magnifi- 
cent winter pasturage for hogs. In our climate the stock and 
cattle can feed upon it in the winter months. Chickens eat it 
eagerly and it is a healthy food for them. 

FINE SOIL RENOVATOR. 

"But one of its most valuable properties has almost escaped 
notice. It is a splendid soil renovator.' It is' as effective in 
renovating and restoring an acre of soil as if the land had been 
planted in pea vines. It renders its benefits to the soil by 
storing up nitrogen, a most expensive and valuable fertilizer 
property. This is what is most needed on our lands' which 
have been exhausted by cotton growing. In an official bulletin 
Professor Duggar has declared that to plant an acre in alfalfa 
would confer the same value upon the land as would $5 worth 
of nitrogen fertilizer. 

"I think io well of jJialfa tliat I have been steadily increas- 
ing my acreage. This year I will put a hundred acres in that 
forage. I grew last year sixty acres of alfalfa. Part of this I 
mixed with Johnson grass, the two growing together on the 
same land. The mixture increased the yield at least one-third 
and I got a better price for the mixed hay than I would have 
received for Johnson grass. 

"The farmers about here who grow alfalfa and raise stock 
are compelled to grow some cotton. They are obliged to grow 



THE ALADAMA OPPORTUNITY. 79 

cotton to control labor. We can not get negroes to stay on the 
place if they are not allowed to raise cotton. This situation is 
not generally understood by people who have not had the ex- 
perience. The lack of labor is the thing that most handicap-: 
us in hay raising V\'liy. l^st season during the cutting season 
I was paying a dollar a day and board to field hands and I 
could not get allT needed at that price. 

REDUCING COTTON ACREAGE. 

"I have, however, reduced the cotton acreage to the lowest 
possible limit. The negroes who live upon and work on the 
place are not allowed to plant but twenty acres of cotton to the 
mule. If I had my clioice iibout it, if it was so I coul dget all 
the labor I needed, I woud not plant any cotton. 

"The land about here is especially good for raising corn, too. 
1 have gotten a yield of forty bushels to the acre with but little 
trouble.. Of the three years I have farmed here I have sold 
home-raised corn in the Montgomery market every year except 
the last. I would have sold corn this last fall except that I 
bought an additional tlve head of horses and mules. My stock 
of Berkshire hogs has largely increased. They now number 
about fifty and by next fall I expect to have 200 head. More- 
over, on my place we put up 2.000 pounds of meat last year 
from home-raised hogs. 

"By the way, I have started an experiment in raising onions. 
There was such a fine yield of onions in my garden last year 
that I was impressed wit iilheir possibilities. I am confident 
that from the one acre of onions that I have planted I will 
make at least 150 bushels. I expect to sell these onions from 
this acre for at least a dollar a bushel." 

The Kansas farm of Jesse Jones' is a mile southeast on the 
Woodley Road. It is somewhat different from that of his 
neighbors, because Mr. Jones has introduced some of the dis- 
tinctly Kansas methods in his farming operations. Mr. Jones 
was educated in the science of agriculture and the education 
was coupled with a thoroughly practical experience. He has 
been an assistant in the Agricultural Department of the Ala- 
bama Polvtechnic Institute. He will be recalled by many far- 
mers of Alabama who met him at various' institutes held under 
the auspices of the Auburn faculty. Mr. lones was reared in 
Kansas but came to Auburn to assist in the demonstration of 
the science of agriculture. 



80 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

THE KANSAS METHODS. 

A year ago he bought the old Farlet place and brought his 
lather and brothers from Kansas to help him in his Montgom- 
er}' County farming operations'. His barn yard after one year 
of farming is good to look upon. It is filled with hay and fod- 
der Ft-icks, and the corn cribs and the barns' are bursting with 
hay and corn. The stalls are full of fine bred stock for he will 
raise horses and cattle as well as form products. Of his' thir- 
teen head of horses, eight of ihe mare strong and powerful 
Percherons and there are two fine head of mules with the 
horses. 

"I am going to put in a large acreage of corn this year," said 
Mr. Jones. Last year we did not get our corn in until the 
23d of April, still the yield was very satisfactory. Of course 
I am going to plant some cotton. We will have to do that, but 
cotton will be of secondary importance with us. 

"In planting our corn we are going to use a pure bred seed. 
We are going to devote particular and special attention to the 
selection of seed and only the best will be permitted to go in 
the ground. This is an important detail and we propose to 
attend to it carefully. For that matter, however, we try to 
have pure bred seed of all sorts as well as' cattle and chickens 
of the best breed. 

"Our plowing is done a little differently from that usually 
seen about here. We use gang plows with three and four 
horses. One of these i;](iws cut twelve inches and the other 
sixteen inches. We have been accustomed to break up the land 
deeper th?n is usually done. 

"T am a great believer in alfalfa. I think that is the best 
fo'"age that can be grown in this country, either for use on 
the farm or for sale in the market. We plan*:ed some alfalfa 
l"st ve?ir and gi.t a surprisingly pood yield. This year we will 
put in quite an acreage of it. We expect to grow large quan- 
tities of it." 

Mr. Jones is' a chicken fancier and is going extensively into 
diicken raising. He has three first-class modern incubators, 
'"'^hese iiicubators when doing their full work as substitutes for 
h'^ns can turn out 500 chickens a month. As a starter for his 
^^--i'-ken fprm for the coming year Mr. Jones' has 100 chickens 
on his place. They are the pure blooded Tangshang. 



Farmers About Ozark Teach Art of 
Living at Home. 



/^\ ZARK is the capital city of the hog and hominy country." 
^^y This is the distinguishing characteristic, the thing of 
which the thoughtful business man of the Dale County city is 
proudest. The first Ozark man I talked with made the boast. 
The farming territory about Ozark is the territory of those 
who live at home. Its people have no smoke houses' in th'^ 
West. There are no wagons going daily out of Ozark 
weighted down with store-bought corn and store-bought bacon. 
They have these things to sell, these farmers of Dale. Wag- 
ons in other towns of Alabama, too many other towns of Ala- 
bama, drive out with their loads of Western corn and of Wes- 
tern meat. They drive into Ozark, wagons from the country 
around, loaded with home-raised corn and home-raised meat. 

Why, Ozark has shipped meat on the cars, on many cars to 
Montgomery and other cities. Not in one year only has this 
been done, but it has been done in several successive years. The 
farmers about Ozark have, loaned and shipped cars of Dale 
raised corn to other towns and sections' of Alabama. 

There were said to be farmers, a few of them, and they 
were named to me, who from year's end to year's end never 
found it necessary to pay money for anything their fam- 
ilies' had to have to eat or to wear. No Alabama farmer can 
grow cloaks and hats, or Java cofifee and Oolong tea. But 
some few farmers around Ozark have reduced the art of living 
at home to such a science that they do not find it necessary to 
pay out money for these household needs, half necessities and 
half luxuries. They raise and bring to town vegetables' and 
other products which the merchants need and for which he 
IS willing to exchange, without the passing of money, part 
of the stock he keeps for sale. 

ART OF LIVING AT HOME. 

And the things he so exchanges • are but side issues' to the 
Dale County farmer. His own corn is bursting through the 
cracks of his crib, his own home-raised and home-cured meat 
6 



82 THE ALABAMA OPPORTbXlTY. 

is hanging by beargrass withes' from the roof of his smoke- 
house like an array of stalactites in some dark cave, his own 
syrup is barreUed and headed in his kitchen or in his smoke 
house, his hogs and cattle roam the hill sides and hammocks 
of his big pasture and in the spring his two and three acre 
garden is rich alike in fruit and in vegetables. 

The class of farmers who have to buy nothing for which they 
pay money is of course small, but the class who have bursting 
corn cribs, plethoric smoke houses, sleek and snug mules and 
horses, well fed and valuable cattle, is by no means small in 
Dale County about Ozark. They are numerous' enough to give 
Ozark and this section a pride and a distinction. Upon every 
road that leads from Ozark these contented and prosperous 
farms are found. And on every farm is found a man who 
doesn't pernnt his fences and farm buildings to become ragged 
or run down at the heel, who pays his debts' and his taxes, 
supports his church, takes his County papers with some big 
Southern weekly and sends his children to school. 

THE INDEPENDENT EARMER. 

He doesn't find it necessary to have a painful interview with 
his merchant in the merchant's office when he goes to buy his 
goods, nor does he have to stand the merchant's telling him 
that his family is demanding too many clothes and too much 
food. Nearly all that he has to have he can pay for from the 
remains of last year's crop and when he finds it expedient to 
buy goods on a credit he doesn't have to mortgage the family 
sewing machine and his little daughter's pet calf to get the 
money. And at the end of the year, selling his cotton means 
more to him than driving it to a warehouse, throwing it off 
and taking the receipt around to liis merchant. 

That a condition so fraught with good for the County, so 
fraught with value to the State should be so rare in Alabama 
with all its' fertility of soil, with all its richness of agricultural 
resources, is a thing of sorrow to thoughtful Alabamians. 
That it is pronounced and emphatic in and about Ozark as to 
call for extended notice and comment is a thing of creditable 
pride to Ozark. 

But its existence means more than the inspiring sentiment 
of pride to Ozark. It has an undeniable commercial and finan 



the; ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 83 

cial value to Ozark. It has given to Ozark a substantial and 
continued prosperity. It has given the town a contented past 
and an assured future. It has brought Ozark through the 
crucial periods of its history, periods which every town has, 
when it booms for awhile and the inevitable reaction sets' in, 
periods when the town suffers from some financial depression 
that chills and sickens the whole country. Its diversified farm 
interests' were as a sheet anchor to the windward in time of 
storm for Ozark during the continued pv^jic of tht '90's. In 
time of panic the man who doesn't owe anything is the man 
who is going to suffer least. 

A THING OF PRIDE. 

"I honestly believe." said Joe Adams, of The Ozark Star, 
and Manager of an Ozark oil mill, "I honestly believe, that 
the most prosperous time for the farmers about Ozark was 
during the financial troubles of the early '90's. Their way of 
living at home, their way of diversified farming made them 
independent of any demands from frightened and alarmed 
creditors. The financial troubles helped them in a way for 
they gave the farmers a better price for the many things that 
were raised on Dale County farms, besides cotton." 

And the agricultural conditions which exist about Ozark 
have given the place not only firm and stable business condi- 
tions, but they have given the town vigorous and prosperous 
banks, excellent schools, costly churches with large congre- 
gations, a wide circle of men who began life with nothing 
and who have independent fortunes and they have given the 
town a healthy and wholesome social life. It means much to 
be "the capital of the hog and hominy county." There are 
many, many sections of Alabama which could learn things 
of value and importance from Ozark's agricultural section. 

DECLINE OF ^ADVANCING." 

One significent difference between Ozark and other towns 
of its size in Alabama, a difference brought about by the live 
at home policv of its farmers, is the slight importance of the 
advancing business in Ozark as compared to the other towns. 
The business of advancing money to farmers by merchants 



84 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

upon crop mortgages to be collected at the end of the year 
has not of course, disappeared, but it has been significantly 
minimized. This does not mean that the town has a small or 
insignificent business. On the contrary it has a much larger 
business than of many other towns of its size. And being less 
of a business of a year's credit to it, it is' a healthier and 
stronger commerce. 



■mM^^^W4-^P- 




J 



COW PEAS AND VELVET BEANS 



"A Little Empire" is County of Covington. 



COVINGTON County I heard described as "a little empire," 
when I had been in its capital city of Andalusia a bare 
five minutes. 

A proud citizen so termed it, averring in the next breath 
that next to Baldwin County it was the largest county in Ala- 
bama. He furthermore went on record as' saying that its ex- 
panse of territory was equal to that cultured but corruption- 
ridden state, Rhode Island. 

But coming down to arbitrary facts, I learned that this big 
county had a territory of 1,012 square miles — a territory that 
ic almost twice as large as some other counties of the State. 
Now each square mile contains 640 acres of timber or farm 
lands. The county therefore has' the enormous total of 647,680 
acres of land and the most of it is the sort of soil that would 
delight the heart of any thrifty intelligent farmer. 

These figures may be troublesome, but they are nevertheless 
to be borne in mind if one cares to get a true and adequate 
conception of existing conditions in this big and promising 
South Alabama county. 

Man for man, Covington County increased between the cen- 
sus' of 1890 and the census of 1900 faster than did Jefferson 
County. And its percentage of increase, being larger than thai 
of Jefferson County, was larger than that of any other county 
in Alabama. 

I have heard it declared that the percentage of increase of 
population of Covington County was larger than that of any 
other county in the United States. , There was no official bul- 
letin of the census department to back up this statement and 
fortify it agamst any attack of doubt, and is therefore set down 
here with a degree of qualification. 

FASTEST INCREASE HERE. 

But the other Covington County assertion, namely, that 
the county increased faster than any other Alabama County, 
stands for itself and needs no restriction or qualification. The 



88 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

cold, census figures show that the population of the county 
more than doubled in the ten. years between 1890 and 1900. 
These figures show that the percentage of increase was more 
than 100. 

If any man who is the fortunate possessor of one of these 
excellent Alabama maps The Advertiser is now sending out 
should turn tq its margin, so rich in statistical information, he 
will find the census figures of 1890 and of 1900 as they relate 
to the counties. of the State so carefully s'et down that they 
may be easily compared. 

If he puts his finger on Covington County he will see that 
in 1900 the county only had 7,536 people and that in 1900 that 
population had increased to 15.346 — more than doubled. 

Suppose that Georgia County of Fulton in which is located 
the timid, shrinking city of Atlanta, had been given so brave 
or dear a compliment by the census people ; those conservative 
papers which have so praised Atlanta year in and year out 
would have been speechless with pleased astonishment and 
would have used, when they recovered, page after page in ex- 
plaining just how it happened. 

Fancy that rapid growth County of Jefiferson in Alabama had 
more than doubled its population. Then consider what the pa- 
pers and the people of Birmingham would have — but such a 
thing as that is beyond the flight of imagination. 

Even dignified Montgomery would have temporarily lost 
her poise had so fine a thing come her way from the census 
bureau. 

THE RAILROAD CAME IN. 

This same census was' over four years ago. The railroad had 
just come in a couple of years previous. The census takers 
were doing their work in the first flush of the County's reju- 
venation. This growth so' remarkable has more than held it? 
own. For instance the same census shows Andalusia with a 
population of 500, which was accurate enough over four years 
ago. But to-day Andalusia is over four times as large as it 
was when the census was taken. The County itself is claimed 
to have a population of 20,000 which may not be far of the 
m.ark. 

This wide expanse of territory, Covington's 647.680 acres of 
land, and a population of 20.000 people are to be considered 



THR ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 89 

together as co-related facts. Then they are to be considered in 
the Hght of the fact that altogether the soil is the fine farm 
land that characterizes the Wiregrass, and although no County 
of South or South East Alabama is better equipped with rail- 
roads than is Covington, fine farm lands can be bought for 
from $5 to $12 an acre. As a whole I found lands in no South 
or Southeast Alabama County so moderate in price. What a 
fine field for development, therefore, does the big County 
hold! 

It is pierced by two branches of the Central of Georgia. It 
is cut from end to end by the Louisville and Nashville. The 
land is the clay and sand so suitable for farming, so fruitful 
and so sure of fine crops. And thousands and thousands of 
acres to be had for from $5 to $12 an acre. These conditions 
in themselves are assurances of the truth of the claim of the 
Covingion County people that just as the county doubled it^ 
population in the past ten }ears even so would it double its 
population in the next ten years. 

WIDE FIELD FOR PROGRESS. 

The cheap lands, the railroad facilities, the fertile soil, the 
climate, which is that of South Alabama — and that is to say it 
is as fine as any climate in the world — are impressive in their 
possibilities of the country's future. So wide a field is this 
county for progress one fancies that civilization could never 
become crowded. So fine is the soil that one wonders why 
other Southeast Alabama counties are so thickly settled, and the 
wonder grows that in other counties land like those in Coving- 
ton sell for $20 and $25 an acre. 

A national movement of immigration is setting towards the 
South. The movement is too obvious, too manifest, to be un- 
noted. It needed not the telegraphic dispatch so widely pub- 
lished the other day that 487 white immigrants left Chicago on 
one train to come to one Alabama county to convince the ob- 
serving man of the existence of this movement. From the 
Northwest people are moving from the snow and ice fields to 
the sunny and cordial pine lands of Alabama. The tide of 
European immigration is turning, slowly, but nevertheless 
turning, from the North and the Northwest to the land of sun- 
shine and Gulf breezes. The best that is in the movement 



90 the: ALABAMA Oi'POKTUNlTY. 

Alabama has not yet been able to avail herself of. for she has 
no immigration bureau, no organized efifort to carry into the 
North and into Europe the recorded richness of her soil and 
the beauties and delights of her climate. 

When Alabama gets her share, or only a part of her share 
of the immigrants, whether they be European new comers, 
Northern or Southern farmers the county of Covington, and 
her sister counties, will each become a political sub-division of 
pride and of riches. 

With its' soil and its climate Covington's agricultural resour- 
ces are undivined. Plain farming is the rule now — the grow- 
ing of com and cotton. The farmers who people Covington 
County are Southern born and Southern bred. They were 
originally small farmers who came from Mobile and Southeast 
Alabama counties where they grew up in the cotton rows. 
They can grow cotton here, a bale to the acre, if they so 
choose. But as to truck farming they have never done it and 
they have never seen it done. 

LACK OF TRUCK FARMERS. 

I talked with L. J. Salter as to the land's possibilities for 
other things besides the staple articles of cotton and corn. 
Mr. Salter is an old citizen who knows the county from end 
tc end as he knows the way from his home to the public square 
of Andalusia. 

"Its as fine a truck farming country as there is in the State 
and yet there is not a truck farm in the whole county," said 
Mr. Salter. "It's as fine a county for raising strawberries as 
that country about the big strawberry field at Castleberry ; 
yet there was not enough strawberries raised about Andalu- 
sia last year to supply the tables of the town's two hotels. 

"Why shouldn't it be a fine truck country. We are on a 
Ime with the truck raising section of Conecuh County and 
our climate and our railroad facilities are as good. As for 
strawberries, our soil and our climate is the same as that of 
Castleberry. 

"But our people don't know about truck farming. They will 
have to be shown how it is to be done and where the money 
will come in." 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 91 

The Covington County farmer knows, however, how to raise 
cotton according to the bale to the acre plan. The bale vo 
the acre farmer here is no rare individual. There is no prom- 
inent citizen of Andalusia but who can on a moment's' notice 
leel^off the names of half a dozen men who grow a bale or 
very nearly a bale on every acre of their land. 

Such a farmer is Jesse Jones, a few miles out from Andalu- 
sia and who came to Covington County from Montgomery 
County, being of that sturdy and reliant family of Jones who 
live about Pike Road. 

The possibilities of the Covington County lands are shown by 
the farm of Sam Spicer, another independent farmer, who got 
two bales from one acre last year. 

LANDS LIE WELL. 

The lands of Covington County, for the benefit of those who 
are or who should be interested in them, are similar to the 
lands of other Southeast Alabama counties. "They lie well," 
is the every-day expression used to describe them, which means 
that they are rolling, with no sharp hills and no pronounced 
valleys and level enough to hold and store up the fertilizers 
that may be entrusted to them. 

J. M. Snead, one of the original settlers and builders of 
Dothan. but now a citizen of Andalusia, is a great admirer 
of these same lands. He thinks highly of their possibilities. 
Having been identified with Andalusia and with Covington 
County for the past six years Mr. Snead is thoroughly con- 
versant not only with the merits of the soil, but with the remark- 
able development of his town and county. 

The county is peculiarly adapted to the lumber business. It 
was not only naturally rich in virgin timber but it is well 
equipped with convenient running streams for the rafting of 
logs and the transportation of timber. Considered as helpers to 
the lumber industry are Conecuh River, Yellow River and 
Five Runs — all free running- streams. 



Largest Pecan Orchard in Alabama. 



H dream came true — such is the Reed Pecan Orchard — the 
largest in the State of Alabama. E. B. Reed, the dream- 
er twelve years ago dreamed that pecan trees would draw a 
fortune from the hills of Alabama. 

The Reed Pecan Company was organized last year. The 
man who dreamed the dream sold some $18,000 worth of the 
stock, retaining for himself a controlling interest in the $50,- 
coo capitilization. Moreover, he gathered some several thou- 
sand dollars' from his pecan orchard for the one year. Mr. 
Keed if he chose to do so could sit quietly, and without lifting 
a hand gather this fall $8,000 or $9,000 or maybe $10,000. 
With no worry, no anxiety, no uneasiness about the weather 
Mr. Reed could sit upon the front porch of his residence and 
watch his fifty acre pecan orchard bring him a small fortune of 
eight or ten thousand dollars. , 

Experimenters are not failures all the time. Some of them 
make good. All dreamers do not go through the world with 
empty pockets'. Some of them gather gear even as they had 
expected they would. 

The man who had visions of money coming out of a big 
pecan orchard is one of the exceptions to the rule. His neigh- 
bors smiled at him in a knowing way when he planted fift}' 
acres in pecan nuts. It was the rankest sort of an experiment. 
It would be years before he could draw a cent from the or- 
chard, eight years, at the very least. The idea of such an ex- 
periment. 

But the man with the idea had faith — and he had patience. 
Patience was infinitely more needed than faith. And so the 
man went ahead with his work and with his ideas. 

To make expenses he grew a cotton crop among the young 
and tender trees. For one reason, he did this because culti- 
vation of cotton helped the trees. If the cultivation of cotton 
had interfered with his' idea Mr. Reed would not have grown 
any cotton. For eight years he planted cotton. Then he 
quit, for his orchard was bearing pecans and the wholesale mer- 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 93 

chants in New Orleans began firing in five times as many orders 
as he could fill. 

That was three years ago. Air. Reed owns one of the finest 
homes on the highest hill in Lanett, with a big flower yard, a 
spacious green lawn and big water-oak trees. He sold the 
stock in his company with ease and the neighbors who laughed 
at him are buying ypung pecan trees to set out on their own 
farms. 

CARRYING OUT AN IDEA. 

There have been more failures in agriculture than any other 
field of endeavor. The industry offers and has offered through 
all the ages an interesting field to the experimenter. It is full 
of temptation, the business of farming and its corollary indus- 
tries. There seems to be so many difiFerent methods of doing 
an old thing in a new way, or doing some new thing in a new 
way. Therefore, as has been before remarked, agriculture has 
more failures marked up to its' credit or discredit than any other 
line of industry. 

For which same reason the man with a new idea, the man 
with an experiment, is regarded always with' suspicion by his 
neighbors. It is easier for a man with an idea to convince peo- 
ple with money that gold can be distilled from sea water by a 
process of which he only knows, than it is for a man with a new 
agricultural idea to win the faith and confidence of his' neigh- 
bors. That typical American character, the sanguine boomer. 
Colonel Mulberry Sellers, had a much easier task of convinc- 
ing would-be investors that there were millions in his patent- 
ed eye-water, than he would have had if he had undertaken to 
solicit some new idea about growing corn or cotton. 

The success of Mr. Reed's venture, however, did not de- 
pend upon the faith his neighbors put in the undertaking. 
It was his' money, his time and his faith that he had put in the 
enterprise. He was to reap the result, whatever it was, success 
or failure. 

To be sure pecans had been grown for profit and with suc- 
cess in Texas, Louisiana and other states. But in East Ala- 
bama and West Georgia such a thing had never been before 
undertaken. There were some pecan trees scattered here and 
there, but they were there more as curiosities or accidents 
than anvthing else. 



94 THE ALABAMA OPFORTUXITV. 

One of these trees which stands in the suburbs of West 
Point, is a remarkable specimen. It was' planted forty-eight 
years ago and to-day it measures from furtherest bough to 
furtherest bough, eighty feet. The trunk of this tree is said 
to be eight feet in circumference. This tree is an enormous 
bearer. From its branches last fall no less than $65 worth of 
pecans were sold, to say nothing of quantities of them being 
given away. This tree had an important bearing upon Mr. 
Reed's determination to go into pecan culture as an investment. 

BIRTH OF the; idea. 

"Twelve years ago," said Mr. Reed . "this tree was a giant 
bearer. Its nuts were of a peculiar rich flavor. The strength, 
age and productiveness of this tree convinced me that the soil 
and climate about here were adapted to the culture of pecans. 
1 didn't want to go into the business, however, before I learned 
something about it. So I took a trip to Louisiana and Texas' 
where I visited some of the largest pecan orchards in the coun- 
try. When I had gotten all the information I could get without 
experience I came back to Lanett and pitched my orchard." 

Mr. Reed's orchard is on Alabama soil, but it is just right 
up against the Georgia line. The orchard lies along the 
Chattahoochee river on an angle formed by the river and the 
line of the Western Railroad. One gets a good view of it in 
going to Atlanta just before the train reaches West Point. 
At the orchard the Chattahoochee River is' well within the 
State of Georgia. The Georgia line runs down from the north, 
skirts the Reed pecan orchard and strikes the Chattahoochee 
River a little below. This same line divides the two towns of 
West Point and Lanett, there being perhaps as many people 
on the Alabama side of the line as on the Georgia side. Some 
of the suburbs of West Point are well within the State of Ala- 
bama. 

The land on which Mr. Reed planted his orchard is' of sandy 
loam. The trees were put down in 1893. 

- "I planted the trees in check rows forty feet apart," said 
•Mr. Reed. "This had been done at the orchards I visited in 
Louisiana and Texas and -corresjiondents in various parts of 
the country had advised me to plant the trees at that distance, 
I'his proved to be a mistake, a small one. however. Fortv feet 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 95 

might do in other sections of the country, but with our cHmatc 
and with our soil the trees grow bigger and more room is de- 
manded. The trees I have planted since then I have planted 
fifty feet apart." 

THE OLD ORCHARD. 

The fifty acres which comprise the old orchard were all 
planted in 1893. ^o^ seven years I cultivated the ground by 
the side of the young trees. The cultivation of the ground 1 
found was of material benefit to the young trees. I looked, 
too, after the fertilization of the trees. The best fertilizer is' 
undoubtedly dried blood placed at the roots of the trees. 
This is difficult to obtain, however, and I was able to get some 
for only a few years. I have since used as tree fertilizers 
bone dust and cotton seed meal and from these I have g-otten 
good results. 

"The trees' demand no care. Any growing thing, does better 
for a little attention. I give the water oaks on my lawn some 
care and attendance and they are all the better for it. This is 
true of the pecan trees." 

"The chief thing demanded by pecan culture is patience. 
My trees were eight years of age before they began bearing. 
A man has to be well supplied with patience to wait 
eight years for the first crop. Still it is to be remembered that 
the ground underneath can be cultivated until the trees begin 
bearing, and even later to the advantage of the trees, if their 
foliage did not so shade the ground that a full crop cannot be 
grown. 

"There are many advantages to the growing of pecans. In 
the first place the trees are not tender and sickly like the average 
fruit tree. They are so hardy and vigorous that the death of 
one of them is rare enough to be remarkable. The tree is 
sometimes troubled by the insect known as the "sawbug," an 
insect that goes industriously to work Sawing off some of the 
limbs. The "sawbug" at his worst, however, is never a serious 
menace to the life of the tree and in a small wav only does it 
affect the tree's yield. 

THE HARDY TREE. 

"Last year when my trees were eleven years old some of the 
best trees bore each a bushel. This year I expect the vield to 



96 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

be mucli larger. It is possible that \vc may get an average of 
a bushel a tree throughout the fifty acre orchard. 

"The nuts ripen between the first of October and fifteenth of 
November. C/alhering them is a very simple process. A sheet 
is spread under the trees and a boy climbs the trees and shakes 
them down, just as you gathered hickory nuts or chestnuts 
when you were a boy. 

"The market for pecans is' always good. Last fall I could 
not fill one-fifth of the orders that came in. The yield of our 
orchard is' sold in New Orleans which is the best market 
in the world for pecans. Our nuts brought the uniform price 
of $4.20 a bushel. There are approximately 2,000 trees in 
the old orchard of fifty acres, so, if we get a yield of a bushel 
to the tree, you can easily see that out returns will be satis- 
factory." 

The fifty acres so frequently alluded to, by no means repre- 
sents the entire' holdings of pecan orchards by Mr. Reed. This 
fifty acres be put into the stock company, of which he has sold 
ever $18,000 worth of stock. Over and beyond this he, has 
sixtv-five acres of pecan trees. The most of these trees are, 
however, yet too young to bear. 

The company which now controls the old orchard is com- 
posed of E. B. Reed of Lanett, president ; F. M. Coker, of At- 
lanta, vice-president ; L. S. Turner, of West Point, treasurer 
and T. J. Eady. of Atlanta, secretary. 

The interest in pecan growing is steadily increasing. Mr. . 
Reed adds considerably to his income by selling young trees. 
In liis mail that came to him while he was being interviewed 
was a check for $45 from Joel Hurt, a well known citizen of 
Atlanta for a shipment of young trees. He grows a number 
of varieties of pecans on his place, practically all that are 
known to do well on the soil of the Southern States. He has 
just planted several acres in the Russell pecan, a variety of 
which was bred in southern Mississippi and of which only two 
bearing trees are known. In their native soil near the gulf 
these Russell pecans' grow with a shell so thin that if they are 
allowed to fall upon the ground they burst open. It is a pecu- 
liar fact that on the gulf coast pecans grow with a thinner 
shell, but their flavor is not near so good as the pecans raised 
on Alabama soil. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 97 

"Would you advise the general growing of pecans as a 
money crop?" I asked Mr. Reed. 

"Assuredly. I would," he replied. "No crop is so certain as 
the pecan crop. Bad weather does not destroy it and insects 
do not kill it. Disease never breaks out among the trees and 
they require but little care. When they once begin bearing the 
yield each year shows a large and steady increase. The trees 
are good for at least a hundred years. Moreover, there is al- 
ways a fine market for the yield. It is one of the best money 
crops that can be planted. Only patience is required to pass the 
seven or eight years waiting for the first crop." 



"The Ranch," a Great Black Belt, 1100- 
Head Cattle Farm. 



^^'he Ranch" is just what its name signifies. 
^^ It is two thousand acres of Western hfe set down in 
the heart of the Black Belt. It is rural Montana in rural Ala- 
bama. It is a cotton plantation transformed into a rich stretch 
of grazing land on which i,ioo head of cattle are fattening for 
the market. It is today, although it was but yesterday wide 
expanses of cotton fields cultivated by negro tenants, a Wes- 
tern ranch with cow ponies, fence riders, cow punchers, lasso 
throwers', with big, goat skin spurs and huge stringy saddles. 

On the back porch of the farm house on the hill, there no lon- 
ger hang scooter plows, sweeps, steel yards and cotton baskets. 
Instead of tliese emblems of the cotton plantation there hangs 
suspended two long slender branding irons, the emblem of the 
new order that has pitched its camp on this spot in Hale County.' 
The brand upon the irons is the "Flying E," the brand of W. 
M. Murphy, who left Hale County as a youth, and after accu- 
mulating a great fortune in the cattle business returned to make 
his home in Greensboro and incidentally to introduce cattle 
raising on a large scale in Hale County. 

THE CATTLE RANCH. 

The place he selected is ten miles south of Greensboro. It 
is only two miles from the old ante bellum village of Cedarville, 
which still survives but which shows the dilapidation which time 
and adverse circumstances have brought about. A half mile 
to the west of "The Ranch" is the old plantation of that strong 
and able Alabamian, Syndenham Moore, who was a member 
of Congress when the war broke out and who fell while bravely 
leading a regiment of Alabama soldiers. "The Ranch" was 
three years ago the Hill Place, a plantation that was for perhaps 
seventy-five years given over to the growth and cultivation of 
cotton. It is in the very heart of the conservative cotton pro- 
ducing center of Alabama. 




SHEEP ON FARM OF HON. J. CRAIG SMITH, 
DALLAS COUNTY. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 101 

An old-fashioned, wooden screw, with a heavy cap of shin- 
gles, out of which runs long black beams, stands across the road 
a hundred yards in front of the ranch house. The gin house, 
its companion of other years, has rotted and gone and the old 
wooden screw is fast following it into oblivion. It has pressed 
its last bale of cotton : its heavy wooden beams have made their 
last circuit. The scenes that it knew for so many years, it 
v/ill never know again. It will never hear the laughter and the 
shouts of the negroes at work in the gin house on a crisp fall 
morning, or the crack of the mule driver's whip when the box 
is full of lint, nor give forth againa a protesting creak when the 
mules tug at the long lever. 

THE CHANGED SCENE. 

It is a lonesome symbol of an era that is past and gone on the 
old plantation. In the years past the old screw overlooked a 
thousand acres of green and vigorous cotton waving in the June 
breeze. Today not a stalk of cotton is in sight. The old screw 
is surrounded by a wilderness of verdant grass ; as' far as the 
eye can reach, nothing but grass may be seen. The old planta- 
tion has been crossed and criss-crossed with wire fences. Cot- 
ton fields have become cattle pastures. In this one the mellilo- 
tus is higher than a horse's back, in that one is Johnson grass 
almost as high and a little ways off is the bright green of 
a bermuda grass pasture. 

Behind the house the big lot of the old plantation is still in 
use, but it no longer shelters a little army of work mules. It 
if, now filled with horses and cattle ponies brought from the 
plains of Texas. For each of the riders according to the Wes- 
tern customs must have at least four or five ponies for his work 
of rounding up the cattle, inspecting them at regular intervals 
and keeping a general supervision of the grazing cattle. 

And like a Western ranch, this Alabama ranch has with the 
exception of tjie cook no negroes at work upon it. What labor 
is done is done by white men. for the l$ibor is only the labor of 
riding and of performance of certain duties accurately and ex- 
actly. The men who do the work are young men of good 
C'reensboro families, who find the open air work to their liking. 
The whole is under the management of W. M. Murphy Jr., a 
yovmsr man of stalwart stature who came from the law school 



102 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

of the University of Minnesota to assume charge of his father's 
Alabama venture and is enthusiastic for its success. 

THE RANCH OWNER. 

The owner of this important enterprise and the pioneer of 
the cattle business on such a scale in Alabama has had a most in- 
teresting career. He is a member of a prominent West Ala- 
bama family and has a large company ^f relatives in the va- 
rious towns of the Black Belt. He left Greensboro thirty-five 
years ago on horseback and rode to St. Paul, Minn. The ride 
was taken at that time principally for his health. He later drift- 
ed to the Southwest and became a Texas ranger, having in 
charge at one time a company of those famous keepers of the 
peace. 

He went into the cattle business on the Texas plains and 
succeeded from the first. A few years later he went to Wyo- 
ming and was one of the first if not the very first, large cattle 
raisers of that State. For many years he had a great ranch in 
Montana. At one time he had under lease 800,000 acres of 
grazing land with cattle to the number of 80,000. For several 
years he leased the entire reservation of the Crow Indians from 
the Government and had 1,200 head of horses under saddle. 

On his ranch the battle of the Little Big Horn was fovight 
and Custer and his command was massacred to h. man. Some 
of the scenes of Owen Wister's fascinating story of Western 
life are said to have been laid upon the Murphy ranch. 

THE HALE COUNTY RANCH. 

Some three years ago Mr. Murphy visited his relatives in his 
boyhood home at Greensboro. He fond the home life of the old 
Southern town most attractive. He had then retired from an 
active connection with the cattle business, although he owned 
and still owns a ranch in Montana, which had been satisfactorily 
leased. His family were living in Minnesota, where they have 
a fine summer home. The Greensboro visit resulted in the 
removal of Mr. Murphy from Minnesota to Hale county, where 
the family makes its home in the fine old Walton place in 
Greensboro. It resulted, too, in the establishment of the first 
big cattle ranch in Alabama, for there is no other in the State 



THli ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 103 

which approaches the Murphy ranch in size and nnportance, 
nc other that has 1,100 head of cattle. 

"1 went into cattle-raising in Hale county because it is the 
best grass county in the world," said Mr. Murphy. "I have vis- 
ited all the great grazing sections of our country. I have 
raised cattle in what is considered the greatest grazing fields of 
the West, but I have never seen a section where grass grows 
so luxuriantly as it does here. A section where the grass is 
se rich is a section where cattle can be raised profitably. 

"There is but one problem that the cattle raiser here has to 
solve, that is the growing of a winter grass. This is not ab- 
solutely essential, for cattle in West Alabama can be pastured 
in the canebrakes throughout the winter. Our cattle, for in- 
stance, we drive in the winter from our ranch in Hale county 
tt the canebrakes of the Green county place. But cattle brought 
from Texas are not acquainted with a diet of cane, and it re- 
quires' some time for them to become accustomed to it. 

"The feeding of cattle through the winter months, say for 
three months, will cut too deep into the profits. The finding of 
a winter grass for Alabama is a thing that will mean a great 
deal for the future of the cattle business. I think I have solved 
that problem with the burr clover. I believe that burr clover 
will thrive in Alabama in the worst winters the State has. We 
experimented with burr clover last winter, but the seed we got 
from the dealers were admittedly defective. Next fall we will 
plant the best seed that can be secured anywhere for the suc- 
cessful growth of burr clover means much to us, and to the fu- 
ture cattle interests of the State. As for mellilotus, Johnson 
grass and bermuda grass. I do not believe that they do better 
anywhere in the world than right here in Hale county. 

GRAZING CATTLE. 

"On our place in Hale county," continued Mr. Murphy, "we 
follow a different plan in grazing our cattle than the one which 
is usually followed in this section. The practice here of keep- 
ing cattle continuously in one pasture is an error. The best re- 
sults are secured by changing pastures, by moving the cattle 
from one pasture to another. We have divided the Hale county 
place into eleven different pastures, all of which are sowed in 
grass, and the cattle are moved from one to another." 



104 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

I had the experience of a night spent at the ranch. In the 
late afternoon of the warmest day of the hot spell. I made the 
ten mile trip with Tom Murphy, the younger, who is displaying 
great zeal and energy in making the Hale county ranch a com- 
plete success. We made the journey in a four-wheeled buck- 
board, a Western institution, whose advantages for rough work 
Mr. Murphy knew, and because of which he had the buckboard 
imported from Texas'. 

The motive power was a pair of gray Texas ponies, loosely 
hitched up. They were remarkable travelers. They struck a 
trot in the business portion of Greensboro, and the trot, not- 
withstanding the heat of the evening, was not broken until we 
pulled up in front of the ranch house, ten miles away. The 
journey both going and returning was made in less than an hour 
over roads that were rather rough. 

At the ranch we met the riders, they would be called cowboys 
cut West, Gervin, Duggar and Miller, all mounted on Texas 
ponies, with big saddles, quirts and lassoes. The two of us 
from Greensboro saddled mustangs and galloped over the ranch 
for a look at the pastures and the big herd. 

The 2,000 acres embrace what was really three old planta- 
tions, the Hill, the Moore and the Robinson places. The land 
came into Mr. Murphy's possession three years ago. Last Feb- 
ruarv two years' ago he broke up the old cotton fields and sowed 
them in mellilotus, Johnson grass, hairy vetch and Bermuda 
grass. 

THE LUXURIANT GRASS. 

The way grass thrives on this place is, to say the least, re- 
markable. In one of the pastures we visited the mellilotus and 
the Johnson were so high that the fat and handsome Herefords 
grazing in it were all but hid. The herd was in magnificent 
condition. 

"We have in all, including calves, about 1,100 head," said 
Murphy. "Some of them are registered Herefords and Short 
Horns of the purest breed. As we have some Polled Angus, 
but we believe that the best beef cattle are the Herefords, with 
the Short Horns next. The Herefords use better, they stand 
the hardships better and they are better shippers than cows of 
other breeds. All of our cattle of course are not of pure blood. 
We bought a number of scrub cattle and many of our herd are 
of graded stock. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 105 

"We have had no, trouble whatever with Texas fever, for 
our registered cattle were shipped from below the inferi-ion line. 
They came in from the neighborhood of Corpus Christi, Texas, 
and were not therefore subject to Texas fever. Of the 500 we 
had shipped in, notwithstanding a severe winter, I am satisfied 
v:e did not lose 2 per cent 

"Most of our cattle will be sold in the Northern markets. 
The Northern markets' afford a larger demand and a better 
price than the Southern markets. Some of them, the pure blood 
stock, will go for breeding purposes. The graded stock will 
be sold for beef cattle. We figure that a graded yearling from 
our place here can be put on the market weighing 1,200 pounds 
and sold at 6 cents a pound on the hoof. We shipped last win- 
ter a large number of graded cattle to the New Orleans market. 
We will next January make our first big shipment to the Chi- 
cago market." 

In our rounds we made a call upon the aristocratic and dig- 
nified head of the heard, Royal Choice. Royal Choice a mag- 
nificent Hereford bull is champion of the south. Before Mr. 
Murphy bought him he won the sweepstakes prizes for all 
classes at Fort Worth, Purcell and at other cattle fairs where 
he was exhibited. 

A BOVINE ARISTOCRAT. 

Royal (^noice, as a yearling weighed 1,500 pounds when 
he was bought by Mr. Murphy. From the top of its' withers 
to the ground is only four feet, two inches, but he is seven feet, 
four inches long and has a chest measurement of seven feet, 
one inch. From his breast to the ground is only seven inches. 
In s'pite of his long ancestry and his many claims to distinction 
Royal Choice is quite amiable. 

The question of a sufficient water supply sometimes a serious 
one in the prairies is by no means serious on the ranch. Mr. 
Murphy has eight bored wells, all of them overflowing. Not-' 
withs'tanding that he has a supply of water adequate for all 
the needs of his 1,100 heard of cattle he is having three addi- 
tional wells bored. 

On the Greene county place which is fifteen miles away there 
are only 200 head of cattle at present but during the winter the 
big heard of cattle from "The Ranch," will be driven down 
there for winter pasturage in the cane. This place was formerly 



106 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUXITY. 

the fine hunting- preserve of the Eutaw Gun Club and it still 
abounds in deer arid other game. It is an enormous place, 
embracing- 7,000 acres' fronting for nearly fifteen miles on the 
Warrior River and all of it fenced in. 

On "The Ranch" Mr. Murphy now has 250 acres in hay from 
which the cattle have been kept. This is in mellilotus and John- 
son grass for winter feed. For pea vine hay during the winter 
he has planted 200 hundred acres in peas. He is another ardent 
believet in the great possibilities of Alfalfa and it is his' pur- 
pose to put in 200 hundred acres of that promising forage. 
"The Rranch" boasts a fine drove of Berkshire hogs and a good 
collection of poultry but these are side issues to the main bus- 
iness of the big institution. 

In the fall Mr. Murphy, the younger, the manager of "The 
Ranch" will put in 500 Angora goats and raise mutton for 
Northern and Southern markets. 



H 

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d 

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c 

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Canebrake an Ideal Field For Farming 
Operat ions. 



HsoiL SO productive, and a climate that so harmonizes with 
it makes' the canebrake an ideal field for the working out 
of agricultural problems. 

If there is anything grown in the temperate zone of America 
that will not grow in the fertile fields of the Canebrake, the 
enthusiastic friends of that section say that it has never been 
found. Cotton, of course, is, as it has been for half a century, 
the center of the industrial system of this section, even as the 
sun is the center of the solar system. So many excursions into 
other fields are being undertaken, so many experiments in the 
culture and growth of other crops are being made, so many ar- 
guments as to the possibility of other crops' are being aimed at 
the thinking farmers, so many demonstrations of the financial 
possibilities of other crops are vmder way, that the planter and 
the farmer are being led away from their old methods, slowly 
it is true, but nevertheless they are being led away. 

In the eternal fitness of things it was only proper that the fer- 
tile acres of the Canebrake should become the theatre of these 
experiments and demonstrations. In spite of the conservatism 
of this s'ection, in spite of the ancient allegiance to cotton, which 
in truth has kept the country prosperous through good times 
and bad times, one is impressed with the new ideas, with the 
demonstrations of changes that are being made. The Cane- 
brake, the Black Belt, is the natural home of the cotton plant 
even as the river bottoms of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi 
are also its natural element. All who came to the Canebrake, 
knew cotton culture, or learned to know it. Even the French 
refugees who came into the Canebrake in the State's pioneer 
days, to grow "the vine and the olive," abandoned their French 
crops, that is those of them who remained, and went into the 
growing of cotton. Land is so naturally rich, and land that 
requires so little of fertilizer has always made money for its 
owners, even when the sun of cotton was obscured by the dark 
clouds of adverse financial conditions. 



110 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

New ideas are coming now. New thoughts are shaping the 
plans and the labors' of the planters of the Canebrake. Hard 
by the prosperous town of Uniontown. the Agricultural Exper- 
iment Farm, through its agent Prof. Spillman, is demonstrating 
the wisdom of diverse crops and the short-sighted policy of the 
n-ian who pins his faith to one crop and only one. In the bar- 
becue recently given at the place of General T. T. Munford Pro- 
fessor Spillman, in the course of a forceful address told the as- 
sembled farmers : 

OXE CROP UNWISE. 

"The cotton crop this year in Texas will be a million bales 
short. The boll weevil has widely increased his field of activity 
ii. Texas. In places where he has never been seen before the 
boll weevil is today sitting on the weeds' and waiting the time 
when the cotton plants will have squares on them and he can 
begin his destructive work. It is only a question of time when 
he will make his way into Alabama. Nothing can stop him. 
He is as certain to come as the sun is' to rise." 

This statement of Professor Spillman reflects one phase of 
the reasoning which is' leading planters and farm- 
ers into other lines' of agricultural endeavors and bringing them 
to the study of other crops besides cotton. The interest and 
enthusiasm with which the growth of alfalfa has been met 
and the way in which its field is widening has been alluded to in 
c. previous letter. Something is to be said here not only for the 
diversification farm on the Munford place and the work of the 
agricultural experiment station at Uniontown and incidentally 
of a rather unusual and unique plan of farming that is being 
ft)llowed by several planters in and around Uniontown. 

The farming interest of E. R. Glass, of the prosperous Farm- 
ers' Bank of Uniontown, illustrates this unusual w^ay of farm- 
ing. Mr. Glass, for instance, does not own the land on which 
he farms. He rents it and pays a good rental for it. Moreover, 
lus labor is strictly upon the wage system. There are no shares, 
no lease, no tenant system upon any of the several farms which 
he operates. The negro laborer is hired as though he was' to 
work in a store, and he is paid at the end of every w^eek as a 
store porter would be paid. And in addition to all this Mr. 
Glass raises nothing- but cotton. All of his land except some 
small hay fields is devoted to cotton and his feed crops are 
bought from his neighbors. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. Ill 

In discussing his unique farming methods, Mr. Glass said : 
At present we have about 1,500 acres in cultivation, all ol 
it in cotton. Of all the land we cultivate we only own the Pitts 
place, a farm of sixty acres in Uniontown. The rest of it we 
lent from its owners. For this land we pay in cash a yearly 
rental of from $2 to $2.50. Our regular labor, we make con- 
tracts with, paying a good negro hand this year $12 a month. 
The negro laborers under their contracts are paid off every Sat- 
urday night. This method we have found saves considerable 
trouble and annoyance. 

THE WAGE SYSTEM. 

"On the various places' we run we ordinarily employ enough 
labor at $12 a month to cultivate the crops, but sometimes the 
necessity arises for additional hands as in May and June of 
the present crop season. Because of the lack of labor and the 
pressing need for workers in the grassy crops about here we had 
to pay our extra labor this season in June as high as $1 a day, 
an unheard of price in this section. 

"On the places we cultivate we work this year seventy horses 
and mules. We buy the corn and oats for our live stock in 
car load lots. Being extensively engaged in the-, mercantile bus- 
iness in Uniontown we have found it to our interest to follow 
this plan. A littl^ of the land we rent is devoted to hay, but 
it is raised in no considerable quantities. 

"We have found this system of raising cotton satisfactory 
and profitable. We began it some eight or nine years ago as 
a side issue to our Uniontown business and to give us some sort 
of our activity and occupation during the dull months of sum- 
mer. We have since then increased our farming interests very 
materially and I do not mind saying that they have brought us 
very satisfactory financial results ; although the system may 
be very different from what is ordinarily followed in the grow- 
ing of cotton in Alabama. 

"Outside of the money returns we have found the system 
more advantageous in other ways. We have but little trouble 
with the wages' negro. His accounts never get so involved that 
he doesn't understand them. He knows exactly what he is get- 
ting and he usually knows exactly how he stands. At the end 
of the year there are no involved accounts to straighten out 



112 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

and the result of the } ear's business is known at a glance. The 
expenses of farming, of raising cotton in this way, have grown, 
however, since we started nine years ago. For the first three 
years we were able to get labor for $8 a month, but the farm 
hand demands and receives' $12 a month now. 

"Our yield from the cotton lands worked by the w-ages system 
i'5 to say the least very satisfactory. Now from the old Tisdale 
place, near here, which is the richest we have under cultivation, 
we got last year an average of seventeen bales' to the mule. 
From the Stollenwerck, the Pitts, the Kennedy places, we got 
an average yield of fifteen bales to the plow, which is a very 
good showing for the negro laborers. We only employ four or 
five white men who have the general supervision of the wages 
hands." 

Others in Uniontown who have found the same style of farm- 
ing profitable are R. A. Comer and Son and Adair Brothers'. 
All of them have made money at it and will continue to follow 
it 

The Canebrake experiment station is only a little ways out of 
Uniontown. A little over three miles out on the same road is 
the line Black Belt plantation of General T. T. Munford. where 
the Agricultural Department at Washington is conducting its 
well known demonsfi-ation of the advantage of diversified crops. 
It is on this road leading by the Experiment Station that the 
National Government is just now giving a demonstration in 
road building. The government will superintend the building 
of this road and furnish the machinery for its construction. 
The planters who will be benefitted by its construction will fur- 
nish the material for the road and the labor and the teams nec- 
essary for its construction. 

GOVERNMEMT .\ID. 

The machinery for the building of the road has already ar- 
rived in Uniontown and the work has actually begun. General 
Munford, himself, is the possessor of some improved road ma- 
chinerv and with it he has at his own cost and voluntarily, 
graded and kept in excellent condition a large portion of the 
road leading from Uniontown to his plantation. 

The experiment station is upon forty acres of land, on the 
side of what was a cedar hammock. Originallv the land was 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 113 

not as rich as that in its immediate neighborhood, and years of 
cultivation by negro tenants had reduced to a degree of poverty 
rarely reached by the Canebrake soil. This was considered all 
the better by the experiment station, because the work of the 
station could not be as instructive or as valuable, if the land on 
which the agricultural problems' were worked on was the rich- 
est in the Canebrake. 

It is a state work, this Canebrake experiment station. The 
appropriation from the State of Alabama for its maintenance 
is only $2,500 a year, but the farmers and planters in this section 
of the Canebrake laud the work which the station is doing, 
it is meeting fully the purpos'e for which it was established, 
tiie demonstration of the possibilities of Canebrake soil and the 
exploitation of the methods of farming that will bring in the 
best results. It is under the general supervision of Professor 
J. F. Duggar, the Agriculturist at the main experiment station 
in Auburn. 

The State was fortunate in securing two practical and ener- 
getic men to assume charge of the Uniontown station. 

The Director is' J. M. Richeson. Mr. Richeson was a practi- 
cal and successful farmer in the Canebrake before he was called 
to the head of the station. A course in agriculture at Auburn 
had put him in touch with both the theory and the practice of 
agriculture. His management of the station has been successful 
and of value to his section. 

He has a most valuable assistant in the veterinarian of the 
station, Dr. J. F. Conner, a graduate in veterinary science in 
one of the largest colleges of the north. Dr. Conner, twelve 
years ago came to Uniontown with th eexpress purpose of re- 
maining only a year. He became so impressed with the country 
and so attached to the people that the twelve months grew into 
twelve years ; he married one of the fair daughters of the Cane- 
brake, and has settled down for his life work in this rich agri- 
cultural section of the state. 

Dr. Connor has materially assisted in the growing movement 
in the Canebrake for high class cattle of every sort. He not 
only gives instruction in veterinary science to the numerous 
farmers who come to the station for instruction by which they 
may combat the more common diseases to which horses and cat- 
tle are heirs, but his services are to be had without cost to the 
farmers for a wide radius about Uniontown. Numerous hurry 

8 



114 THK ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

calls are made upon him for miles out in the country, and in 
every case a quick response is given. 

THE EXPERIMENT WORK. 

On the forty acres of land with its attractive farm house and 
modern, spacious barns and lots in the center very nearly three 
hundred experiments are now in course of being worked out. 
At times in one year over three hundred experiments have 
been conducted. 

The experiments deal wdth the adaptibility of the soil of the 
State for all manners of crops, with especial reference to the 
soil of the Canebrake. In the past the large number of exper- 
nnents have dealt with the growth of cotton, its proper fertili- 
zation, its cultivation and the reliability of that are advertised 
for sale. The experiments' have been worked out with a view, 
too, of ascertaining what was lacking in some of the favorite 
soils of the Black Belt whenever such deficiency was found. 

The experiments made at the station in forage plants have 
been especially valuable. The station has done perhaps more 
than any other agency towards' arousing the great interest in 
alfalfa now manifested around Uniontown. It is said. too. that 
in Alabama the Uniontown station was the first to ascertain by 
practical experiments that alfalfa was very near a perfect ration. 
The experiment station people were first to demonstrate in Ala- 
bama that work animals on the farm could be fed throughout 
the entire working season upon nothing els'e but alfalfa. Since 
April 12. the work animals on the experimen*^ farm have no 
other feed than alfalfa. 

The demonstration of the possibilities of alfalfa made at the 
experiment farm have had a quickening and inspiring effect 
upon its status in the Canebrake. Take, for instance, the show- 
ing that three-fourths of an acre of alfalfa has made at the sta- 
tion farm. From this three-fourth of an acre, 6,850 pounds of 
alfalfa hay has been taken and it has been sold in the open mar- 
ket for $39 and there will be other cuttings. 

Thev are doing something, too, at the experiment station in 
the way of arousing an interest in truck farming. This year 
they had one acre of cabbage from which $40 worth of cabbage 
was sold to the people of Uniontown. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 115 

The diversification farm located on the place of general Alun - 
ford and worked under the supervision of the Washington Ag- 
ncultural department came to the Canebrake through the in- 
terest and public spirit of Judge W. H. Tayloe, who, when he 
ascertained that the Agricultural Department was making diver- 
sified experiments throughout the country wrote the depart- 
ment and suggested to it the suitability of establishing such a 
farm in the Canebrake. As a result of that correspondence Pro- 
fessor Spillman, one of the department experts, came to Union- 
town. He was met by William Munford, a son of General 
Munford, and agent for the fine place of 2,500 acres near 
Uniontown, and oflfered the use of a part of the Munford place 
for such land as might be needed for the diversification farm. 

The Government's policy in regard to these farms is to 
furnish the planter with the seed and half the fertilizer for 
the first of the year and to give the farmer the benefit of all 
returns from the farm. On his part the farmer furnishes 
the soil and the labor and in addition he keeps a close record 
not only of every lick of work struck on the farm, but of matters 
which relate to the diversification farm. 

DIVERSIFIED CROPS. 

The farm on the Munford place embraces forty-four acres. 
It is an object lesson in opposition to the policy of one crop. 
The Authorities of the Agricultural Department at Washington 
have gone on record in opposition to the one crop idea, whether 
it be of corn.- of wheat or of cotton. They think the policy of 
a farmer, putting all his eggs in one basket is unwise to say the 
least of it. 

The forty-four acres which are devoted to the diversification 
are largely given over to forage crops. Here, too, alfalfa has 
the call. Nearly half the farm, or twenty acres, is planted in 
alfalfa. The diversification farm has shown not only that al- 
falfa may be grown profitably but it has demonstrated the fact 
that hogs can be pastured upon alfalfa without destroying its 
hay producing capacities. In one small field of alfalfa on which 
fourteen hogs have been pastured, five tons of fine hay have 
been cut. Mr. Munford has' on his place forty-three fine Berk- 
shire hogs. Of these fifteen are pastured and fed on the diver- 
sification farm as a part of its work. 



116 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Alfalfa is onlv the principle not the exclusive interest. Corn, 
oats, sorgum, Johnson grass and other forage crops are pro- 
duced. The corn is cultivated according to Western ideas in 
check rows and is plowed instead of hoed, and improved farm 
machinery is used. 

The plantation under the supervision of Mr. Munford, both 
the diversification farm and the regular farm, is cleanlily and 
intelligently cultivated. Mr. Munford is' increasing his stock 
ii.terests and will in the future raise a considerable number of 
mules as well as of fine Berkshire hogs. Mr. Munford recently 
bought from the famous Vanderbilt farm at Biltmore a Berk- 
shire sow for which he paid $125, but he has already found the 
investment a profitable one. 

With such a splendid farming country surrounding it, Union- 
town could not be other than a solid and prosperous little busi- 
ness center. This commercial and financial solidity is convinc- 
ingly manifested in many ways which impresses the visitors. 
The high standing of the merchants of the little Canebrake city 
on the ridge needs no comment. 



Raising Hay and Stock in Montgomery 
County. 



^^^ HE Tennessee Valley is fair to look upon, whether it be that 
^^ its hills and hollows are clothed inverdure or bedecked with 
the gayer dress of ripening grain ; a beautiful sight is the grain 
country of Tennessee, the big barns on the undulating hills 
filled to overflowing with the rich harvest of the fertile acres, 
the spirited, slender-limbed animals looking disdainfully from 
the aristocratic barn yards in the pride of their long ancestry, 
and the blue grass meadows of Kentucky, whose beauty has 
been perpetuated in song and story — a beautiful sight they 
are in spring or in summer. 

The most enthusiastic admirers of the rich and the beautiful 
grain country are Montgomerians who whirl through its beau- 
ties in upholstered Pullmans or who count themselves fortu- 
nate if chance gives them an opportunity of spending a few 
clays among the swaying grain, the pedigreed stock and the 
rural beauties which surround them. And well worthy of praise 
and admiration is it all. 

The Montgomerians whose commendation of it all has' been 
so enthusiastically expressed have no call for explanation and 
apology, nor has their discernment left an opening for criti- 
cism. 

MONTGOMERY STOCK RAISING. 

And yet in their own County, in the County of Montgomery, 
there is a "grain country," a "stock country" that is at once 
beautiful and inspiring, a stretch of country upon which the 
eye falls with the same delight as that with which it greets 
the rural graces of Tennessee and Kentucky. A grain country, 
a stock country in Alabama — it is a new thought. Still within 
a few miles of Montgomery, within sight of the Capitol, hun- 
dreds of acres are given to the growing of hay. both of alfalfa 
and of Johnson grass, of oats, of corn, and within sight of the 
Capitol there are barn yards full of cattle with a lineage as 



120 THE ALABAMA Ul'l'OKTUMTV 

proud and a pedigree as long as that of a Chinese nobleman. 
There are barns filled to bursting with hay and grain, quick- 
action, labor-saving machinery hard by, while wind mills whir- 
ring in the breeze, fat and lazy hogs, impatient horses, high 
caste chickens, ducks and geese. It is almost a new country, 
this old country in its new dress. 

It lies southeast of Montgomery along the Carter Hill and 
the Woodley roads, two of the magnificent thoroughfares, 
broad, hard and smooth, which radiate from Alabama's capital 
through the rich agricultural paradise known as the prairies. 
It is pierced, too, by the Montgomery and Eufaula division of 
the Central of Georgia Railroad. 

HUNTER VAUGHAN PLACE. 

Perhaps the richest thing in this grain section is the famous 
Hunter Vaughan place, where the single item of hay foots up 
to 1,500 tons a year, and where they plow the land with a 
traction engine and gang plows. Most of those who are grow- 
ing grain and raising stock have come from Kentucky or other 
distinctly grain countries, but Mr. Vaughan is a native product, 
born and reared on Montgomery soil, one of these men with in- 
telligence enough and industrious enough to raise big crops of 
cotton at a profit and courageous enough to cut loose from old 
traditions and make money through the growing of hay and 
the raising of sheep and cattle. Near neighbors of his are na- 
tive Montgomerians, F. S. Holt and W. D. Peck, both of whom 
run model hay farms, and both of whom make money out of the 
raising and thes'elling of hay. 

THE KENTUCKY METHOD. 

Just bevond the Vaughan farm is the stock farm of Mrs. F. 
J. Hagan, late of Kentucky, who has within her barn yards 
thirty-three fine short horns with long pedigrees, and who are 
registered as the best of their breed. 

A mile away is the new country home of Dr. W. M. Brooks. 
He, too, is from Kentucky. And coming from 'Kentucky, he 
is' raising stock and grain. Dr. Brooks is only a year in Ala- 
bama. 




HAIRY VETCH IN MONTGOMERY COUNTY 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 123 

Engaged in the same sort of agricultural endeavor is William 
Deitchmeyer. His place is across the Central Railroad adjoin- 
ing that of Hunter Vaughan. He is to engage in stock-raising 
and the growing of cotton. Mr. Deitchmeyer only took posses- 
sion of his present places' the first of January. He proposes to 
raise both mules and horses. He also comes from Kentucky. 

A KANSAS FARMER. 

A Kansas man has bought the old Farley place, on the 
Woodley Road, in the same neighborhood. He has built him- 
self a two-story home with rounpd white posts on the veranda. 
This is Jesse Jones, a young man, who is farming on the Kan- 
sas plan and who has a barn yard full of Percheron horses, 
strong and heavy wagons and shining harness. He, too, is 
raising grain and stock as well as some cotton. 

Hard by on the Woodley Road and closer to town is the 
fine farm of J. A. Barnes. Mr. Barnes is a great raiser of 
alfalfa and is an authority upon that fine forage. 

A circle with its' center in the proper place and with a radius 
of about a mile and a half would touch each and every one of 
these grain stock farms. While especial stress is being laid 
upon the growing of grain upon these farms it is not to be for- 
gotten that there is not one of these farms mentioned which do 
not support and feed hogs and cattle of the proudest birth. 

ON OLD COTTON FARM. 

The new idea, the idea of this neighborhood is a thing of re- 
cent birth. These farms are established on old cotton planta- 
tions, on the rich and hardy prairie acres, acres upon which 
time seems hardly to make an impression. Hard by these hay 
and grain fields' are prairie lands which this last year, without 
d hint of fertilizer produced a bale of cotton to the acre. The 
native Alabamians have been upon the farms thereabouts for 
several years, but the growing of hay is a thing of recent his- 
tory. That which most impresses, however, is the influx of 
the new idea farmers who have come in and settled down in 
this one neighborhood. 

There must be some inherent richness, some inherent adapt- 
ability in this land to draw these immigrants to Montgomery 



124 Till-: ALAHAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Ccunty, all of them with money and all of them with energy. 

There must have been something about the land which has 
heretofore been undiscovered, or which if discovered has re- 
mained unappreciated. It must give not only one manifest 
jromise of richness to the grnin grower and the cattle raiser, 
but proofs' that the promij^es have come to fulfillment at the 
command of industr\-. 

The prairie land for immemorial years has been the typical 
cotton land. Cotton and prairie land have ever been linked to- 
gether in the minds of the people of Alabama. Black prairie 
land and a bale to the acre — these things have been the talk of 
the Montgomery farmer when he was in a boastful mood. But 
land that raises a bale to the acre and a climate that materially 
assists in the producing of a bale of cotton off one acre of land 
must be of some good for other things. Why should it not 
be good for the growing of hay and the raising of stock ? 

UNEXCELLED FOR STOCK. 

R. S. H. Saul, an experienced horseman, a man whose 
profession is the constant study of horses,- cattle and of the 
conditions which best suit them, and of the food which most 
benefits' them, had this to say of that section of Montgomery 
Countv extending from the suburbs of Montgomery along the 
Carter Hill Road for ten miles : 

"It is the best hav country, the best cattle country I ever 
saw. I am familiar with the famous grain countries of Ten- 
nessee and Kentucky. I know other stock raising sections of 
the United States. I have never seen any superior to this 
section right here for the growing of hay and the raising of 
horses, sheep and cattle. The finest pastures I ever saw were 
right here. 

"The chief advantage of this section over Kentucky and 
'■j'ennessee is that we have practically ten months' of open 
grazing for horses, cows and sheep. In Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee snow is on the ground for several weeks. They have 
had to build stalls and cattle sheds for the housing of their 
stock, and they have to feed their cattle from their store of hay 
and grain for four and five months. 

"Look at that pasture over there. Notice that green growth 
of rich clover, and here it is in January. Why, there are 



THE ALABAMA OPI'ORTUN ITY. 127 

thousands and thousands of head of stock in Alabama pastures 
that never get a feed from year's end to year's' end, and they 
remain strong and hearty throughout the winter. And the 
best stock, the stock the owner wants to take the best care of, 
he never has to feed them more than two or three months, if 
that long, in the winter. And, then, the stock raiser does not 
have to build any big and costly sheds and barns for the 
housing of his cattle. All this goes to show that I am right 
when I say that stock and cattle can be raised cheaper right 
here than anywhere else. 

"As for the hay, no better hay is grown anywhere. It does 
not make any difference whether a man wants to grow Alfalfa 
or Johnson grass, he can not do any better anywhere than 
right here. There is an unwarranted prejudice in some sec- 
tions against Johnson grass. Now, you take the bulletins from 
any experiment station, from any agricultural college, and 
they will tell you that Johnson grass is more nutritious ; that 
it has more elements of fat in it than any other hay. You 
hear some people say, 'Well, if Johnson grass once gets in, 
vou can never get rid of it.' Who wants to get rid of it? 
What does anybody want to get rid of it for? There is more 
nionev in raising Johnson grass than there is in raising cotton. 
If there was not money in Johnson grass hay, do you suppose 
farmers like W. D. Peck. Hunter Vaughan and Frank Holt 
would be devoting their time, their farms and their money 
to it ? 

THREE CUTTINGS OF HAY. 

"You see, it is possible to get three cuttings of hay a year 
off a Johnson grass hay field in Montgomery County. It has 
been frequently done. These men that are raising hay always 
get two crops off the land. And both crops are not always 
hav crops. More frequently the first crop is an oat crop. We 
have passed a number of hay fields which have been harrowed 
and sowed in oats. But even if the oats are planted later, 
they are cut in June and the field is allowed to grow up in John- 
son grass, and it never fails to make a fine crop. But if it is 
allowed to remain in Johnson grass, one crop of hay is cut in 
the early summer and a second crop is cut in August or Sep- 
tember." 



128 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

"Practically all the hay grown in that section is Johnson 
grass, although J. A. Barnes, on the Woodley Road, is' raising 
alfalfa easily and profitably. Cattle raising is yet in its infancy. 
With its growth will come, too, the growth of alfalfa, and 
much of the Hagan place will be devoted to the same crop. 
One of the new-comers, who has a valuable herd of cattle, 
said convincingly : "The solution of the agricultural questions 
in this section is the growing of alfalfa." 



p 
o 

O 

O 

Q 
O 




The Strawberry Country 



'^'he strawberry country, what is it? 

^^ The newest, the latest thing in agricultural Alabama. Less 
than four years old, the section known to the general public 
in only a vague way is attracting attention, not only in Ala- 
bama, but throughout the Southern States. It has had a 
marvellous' growth in its four years of life. The land is 
the yellow pine land, the famous timber lands of Alabama of 
a quarter of a century ago. It is "cut over" land, which means 
that the big lumber mills have done their work and moved on. 

What to do with the thousands and thousands of acres of 
"cut over" lands throughout the pine belt of Alabama is an 
acute and pressing question in South Alabama. Truck farm- 
ing and strawberry raising mean the bringing of immigrants 
to Alabama. The immigrants come as a consequence of this, 
sort of farming. They are never cotton raisers. 

The strawberry business down here has passed beyond the 
experimental stage. Its phenomenal growth in four years is 
a sufficient proof of that. For one thing, there is so little of 
risk in it. In the four years they have been growing straw- 
berries on these pine lands no crop failures have been recorded, 
and in the year of 1905, when a frost fell in April, the first 
since 1849, was about as trying a year as an Alabama farmer 
is called upon to experience, and yet the strawberry crop did 
well. 

For one thing, the profits in growing and selling strawberries 
are way above those that come from other sort of farming. 

STRAWBERRY PROFITS. 

A strawberrv raiser stood at his' fence looking over his field 
and showing his crops to a wool hat native who had spent a 
long life in the pine lands. The old man viewed the straw- 
berry proposition of his friend with obvious disapproval. 

"Why," he said, "it's s'uch a pity to put that land in straw- 
berries. That land is good for a bale of cotton to the acre. 
I have seen a bale to the acre crop grown on it." 



132 THE ALAl'.AMA Ori'ORTUNIT Y. 

"No doubt, no doubt," said the strawberry man. "And when 
the acre produces a bale, you get $50 from the acre. Now, let 
me tell you, I got more than $250 in cash from every acre in 
this field last year, and if I should get less than $250 this year 
1 would be mightily disappointed." 

"Sure 'nough," was the admiring comment of the pine land 
native, to whom, as to thousands and thousands of Alabamians, 
the yield of a bale to the acre, or a gross income from the acre 
of $50, was the climax, the summit of agricultural ambition. 

The land hereabouts is held cheaply, as agricultural lands go. 
It is: a light sandy soil, with a heavy clay subsoil, the sort of 
land that is capable of a high degree of fertilization. It is a 
fine site for truck farming and, as in the growing and produc- 
tion of big. luscious strawberries, it is without a superior in 
all the country. 
Outside of the land, much of the excellence of the country 
is in its magnificent climate. The Gulf of Mexico is only 
sixty miles' away from this old sawmill town of Boiling. It is 
within easy reach of the daily breezes from the Gulf, which 
means that the heat of the summer days are not intense, and 
that the nights are breezy and comfortable. They have longer 
summers here than the Northern States have, but the summers 
are not so sudden and the mercury does' not run so high up 
in the tube, or often up and down it. 

The agreeable and climatic conditions have had an important 
bearing upon the unprecedented growth of the strawberry 
industry. The pioneers in the business were the men who 
formed the North Castleberry Strawberry Company four years 
ago. These men were in the main men who had some sort of 
connection with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. The 
venture was a go and a success from its incipiency. Its success 
was an eloquent persuader to others to go in for a share of 
the manifest profits. 

CONDITIONS AT BOLLING. 

The conditions' here at Boiling are especially agreeable to 
the growth and development of these and kindred branches of 
farming. It is the heart of the old sawmill country. 
Here at Boiling for a full forty years was operated 
one of the big lumber mills of the Flowers familv. 




'THE FIRST OF THE SEASON. 



THE ALAUAMA Ol'TOKTUNlTY. 135 

li: l?te years it was run tinder the company name of Milner. 
Caldwell & Flowers, the two former being well-known Bir- 
mingham capitalists and the latter 'the late John J. Flowers, 
who retired from the lumber business with a large fortune at 
the end of an active and successful life. 

But six years ago the mills were moved. The timber in 
this section had been cut away and there was no longer food 
for tie insatiable saws. The mill men had cut over some 
60,000 acres of yellow pine land. What was to be done with it? 

It was good farming land. It is of the nature of the mixed 
clay and sandy lands of East Alabama, which have been made 
to yield such fine returns and upon which has been built perhaps 
the richest farming section of Alabama. The strip of land, so 
we are told, upon which Boiling is located runs through Cren- 
shaw County and the prosperous country about Luverne on 
to the farming counties' farther east. The yellow pine lands 
of South Alabama are much the same everywhere. 

There was but one thing to do to make a farming country 
of what had been a lumber country. But how? That was no 
easy question. It was to be made a farming country bv 
bringing in farmers and selling them land on easy terms, but 
bringing in farmers to a new country is a task that demands 
time, brains and energy. All South Alabama is interested in 
this question, and the hope of a successful solution of it in 
the coming of immigrants in considerable numbers grows 
bright. 

NEED Ol? COLONISTS. 

A company was formed -to exploit and sell the lands here 
at Boiling. The company bought in a body of 23,000 acres of 
the "cut over" lands of the Milner, Caldwell & Flowers Com- 
pany. The moving spirits of the company were Capt. R. F. 
Kolb. Syd Tones and W. C. Shackelford, all of Birmingham, 
and the company was organized and did business under the 
name of the Sydney Colony Company. In time the company 
dissolved and Mr. Shackelford became the owner of the 23,000 
acres of land. Mr. Shackelford is one of the leading capitalists 
of Birmingham. He is at the head of the well-known Ivy 
Coal and Coke Company. 

Joseph L. Lee. well known in Montgomery, is the local 
manag^er for Mr. Shackelford. The movement now on is to 



13 G THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

sell the lands about Boiling to industrious and thrifty new- 
comers. A strawberry farm and a truck farm have been 
pitched to show the investigators what can be done on the 
yellow pine lands. 

"What we have here," said Mr. Lee, "is a demonstration. 
We want to show the man who comes down in South Alabama 
just what can be done on these lands. While we know what 
we tell him about these lands is true, he does not know it. 
AVe propose to show him. through his own personal inspection, 
that we have as fine, if not a finer, truck farming country than 
lie can find anywhere. And to do this we are growing the 
truck. 

"We are, moreover, keeping a close record on every bit of 
work and every cent of expense put in our demonstrations'. 
The books are open for his inspection. When we get to talking 
figures, costs, expenses and returns we propose to show him 
just what each acre-has cost us in money and work." 

Mr. Lee has had experience in real estate dealings in Bir- 
mingham and Sh.effield, and is therefore conversant with what 
is necessary for the conduct of the business of selling land. 
In selling the South Alabama lands, they are a little particular 
as to who the purchasers shall be. 

THE ROLLING DEMONSTRATION. 

""S'ou see," s?id Mr. Lee, "we are not looking for any and 
evervbodv. \A'e don't want a man to come down here who 
made a failure in his old home. Naturally we do not want a 
pauper, a man whom we or the community will have to carry. 
When a man has lived to 40 or 50 years of age and farmed 
since he was a bov, and is not able to pay for his land or pay 
to establish himself in a new country, we think he is a poor 
sort of immigrant. 

"Nor are we advertising that a man can live here without 
working. We do make the claim that a man can get equal or 
greater return for his labor in this section than in almost any 
other section of the country. We are prepared to show that 
from labor and brains on the lands here, with the excellent 
conditions that surround him, the intelligent and industrious 
man can do much better than make a living on a truck farm 
where the soil and climate are so suitable and where his mar- 
kets are so easy of access. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 137 

"This is the intent and purpose of the demonstrations we 
are carrying on. Just now we are giving special prominence 
to strawberry culture. When we make a claim of a return of 
$200 each year from each acre of strawberries, we are prepared 
to prove the claim. We are growing the proof on our own 
lands. We have here sixty acres of this "cut over" land set 
in strawberries. The plants were set out last November. They 
are vigorous and hardy, and the first crop wnW be yielded next 
year. We have an expert in charge of this strawberry farm, 
Mr. Guice, of Brewton, and w^e believe that we have one of the 
most promising strawberry farms in South Alabama. 

"The other strawberry growers of our neighborhood have 
proved that a $200 income from an acre of strawberries is a 
very conservative yield to expect. 

"x\n acre of berries will yield certainly 150 crates of berries, 
and in all probability 200 crates. The berry crop in most 
instances sells for $2.25 a crate. Two dollars a crate is regarded 
as' a very low price for them. For instance, there is G. W. 
P^thridge, of Castleberry, who has two acres in strawberries. 
These two acres last year netted him $302 apiece." 

"But we grow other things here besides strawberries," con- 
tinued Mr. Lee. "This spring we had fifteen acres' in tomatoes. 
From these fifteen acres we sold not less than $3,200 worth of 
tomatoes. The careful bookkeeping record showed that we 
netted the sum of $1,200. In fact, the profit from the tomato 
field amounted to $1,700, for we spent $500 in putting in per- 
manent improvements that we might grow tomatoes each year. 

"But strawberries and tomatoes', are only a few of the things 
that can be grown with profit and with success. We have, for 
instance, as fine a cane field as you can find in the State. This 
pine land beyond doubt is specially adapted for cane growing, 
for syrup or for sug;ir. x-\nd potatoes do splendidly. We 
have been fortunate with our potato crop, but for that matter 
we have been fortunate with all we have attempted to grow 
here. 

• "In short, the land about here is suitable for any sort of 
farming. Why, the cotton patches around here grow from a 
bale to one and three-quarters of a bale to the acre crops. It 
is a natural farming soil, the sort that responds' readily to 
fertilizer, and which cherishes and stores up the fertilizer put 
into the soil. 



188 THE ALABAiMA OPPORTUNITY. 

"Tliis and the other towns in this section have another great 
advantage to truck farmers. We are right on the main Une 
of the Louisville & Nashville, and a score of trains pass each 
day. Why. last .spring we started to load a car of tomatoes 
after 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The next morning that car 
was in Birmingham ready for unloading when the produce 
houses opened for business. The same afternoon the car could 
have been put in Nashville and the following morning could 
have been unloaded in Louisville. And every day the truck 
farmer along the main line has the same sort of a chance at 
the more northern markets." 



An Interesting Study in Agricultural 
Fields 



*ff T had been a busy morning in Clayton. It might well be 
" that, for it was a day in the heart of the cotton gathering 
and cotton selling season. For two weeks no rain had fallen, 
and the sun had beaten fiercely down upon cotton farm and 
cotton plantation. 

In the dry heat, in the white sunshine of an ideal September, 
day the cotton bolls had burst open, each with its own fleecy 
cloud of white had burst open so rapidly that the farmer might 
not gather it all, nor find sufficient cotton pickers to keep pace 
with the rapid volunteer work of the September sun. Every gin 
house was an ant hill of industry ; each and every one was 
surrounded by wagons with double-decked bodies packed to 
the top with gathered seed cotton, and the loaded cotton was 
ornamented, more or less so, with a negro sprawled peacefully 
sleeping in the sun and contentedly waiting his proper place 
at the gin under the time-honored policy of "first come, first 
served." 

Cotton caravansaries were climbing the red hills that lead 
to the town of Clayton, the center and capital of Barbour 
County. Cotton wagons were standing in the old square, or 
pulled up against the sidewalk and cotton buyers, knife in hand, 
were busy as bees in a fresh flower yard. It was a busy day 
ir Clayton. 

This trip through Barbour County was to find out how 
strong, how persuasive an invitation the County of Barbour 
could offer to white immigrants. It is, from the nature of 
things as they now exist in the county, a most propitious time 
for the inviting and for the coming of white immigrants for 
the farms. 

A line cut through the county from east to west, and very 
near t<he towns of Eufaula and Clayton, would separate the 
vvhite belt of Barbour, on the south, from the section on the 
north where in the past the negro predominated, but from 
which he has been rapidly moving in later years. It is the 



140 THK ALABAMA (JPPOUTU N I TY. 

northern portion, the section near the Hne of the Central of 
Georgia, which offers the most persuasive invitation. The 
white section is already strong and contented, and lands are 
held at a higher figure. 

Barbour's invitation. 

But in the northern portion l.'uids arc cheap, roads are good, 
railroad facilities arc convenient, the social life is already 
made and of a high order, and the climate is nothing short of 
a beneficent smile of nature. For periods as long as four and 
five years no s'now has fallen upon these hills, and it is a rare 
thing for this section of Alabama to have two snows in two 
successive years. Cattle can be pastured out in the open the 
whole year round. Man himself might live an outdoors and 
tented life the year round and suffer no great hardship. The 
days in winter when water freezes" are seldom and rare. Even 
the summers are not so exacting as those of States further 
north, for the heat is not so intense and sudden, although the 
summer may be longer and the breezes' from the Gulf, only a 
few miles away, tempers the most trying summer the State 
ever has. 

Rich as are the State's mineral deposits, as fertile as are its 
farming acres, its' splendid climate is probablv its best exhibit. 

It was' a busy dav in the building of the Clayton Banking 
Company, a wide and roomy building and a building that one 
would think was too spacious for a bank in a town the size of 
Clayton. But it was a place of no little business. A steady 
stream of cotton buyers and cotton sellers poured through the 
doors and eddied up against the cashier's window. The cotton 
buyer pays for the Southern staple in checks and the cotton 
seller has a trip to the bank after he has thrown his bales off 
at the warehouses and had them weighed. 

Each of the units that formed the stream at the cashier's' 
window had one of these cotton buyer's checks. I had been 
£1 the wdndow for a talk with Cashier Browder Pruett. I was 
taking the interview in broken doses, inasmuch as I was con- 
stantly giving place to the man with the check at the window. 
It wa5 a fortunate circumstance withal. I not only was getting 
information upon Barbour County conditions, but I was getting 
information on the man with the check, who was the central 
fio-nre, the "Exhibit A" in these same conditions. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 141 

THE MODEST CAPITALISTS. 

They were the white farmers, the possessors and the workers 
of the small farms, these modest capitalists with the checks. 
They came in the main from the clustered farms of prosperity 
and fertility to the south of Clayton, the southern section and 
the white section of the county, the section from which the 
towns and the county'draw most of their life blood and vitality. 
They were from the hills and valleys of Central and South 
Barbour, for in those sections of the county the white farmer 
has taken his' stand and made his abiding place. And in doing- 
it he has done what the white farmer has always done — he has 
made his community and his section happy and prosperous. 
He has made them valuable assets of the State, assurances of 
community prosperity and contributory sources of urban com- 
merce. 

An occasional negro had a place in the procession. He was 
a rare party in the cotton parade, however, just frequent enough 
to display the example of negro thrift which is the exception 
rather than the rule, no matter where the negro is' located. All 
the more credit, of course, is due the negro who lifts himself 
above the level of his fellows, but he does not mitigate the 
fearful indictment of industrial inefficiency brought against the 
race as a whole. There be but few negroes who make regular 
trips to the bank, and there be fewer who carry away money 
when they leave. 

White man and negro in the stream, the former frequent, the 
latter seldom, were arguments, as' they did business with bank, 
in the eternal race question — arguments of the superiority of 
the man with the straight hair under whatever conditions might 
prevail, if any such arguments were needed, and such are not 
needed or wanted in this. And they were furthermore exhibits 
and illustrations of conditions which exist in the southern por- 
tion of the county. It is a wonderful contrast that they repre- 
sent, the negro-inhabited northern portion and the white- 
inhabited southern portion. It is the sort of stinging contrast 
that Hamlet pointed out when he showed his mother the dif- 
ference between the brow of his murdered father and 
the lowering features of the man who succeeded to his throne 
and bed. 



142 the alabama opi'ortunity. 

the; Two sections. 

The northern end is black belt territory, the southern end is 
the white man's country. And the white man's country is' the 
abode of peace and plenty, the negro section — well, the negro 
section is not doing so well. 

And why not ? It was originally the goal, the admired land 
of the owner of slaves and of wealth. Beyond doubt the most 
productive acres of Barbour County were along the valleys of 
the three Cowikees. And hardly less fertile were the hills and 
plains, not far off. It was here that the rich planter brought 
his slaves, bought his acre and built his home. It was then the 
best land in the county. The fact that the wealthy farmer — 
the rich man who could go where he listed — bought it, is 
sufficient proof of the statement. Go where you will in Ala- 
bama, you will find that the slave-holding planter bought and 
settled no land but the very best in his section. The northern 
end of Barbour County was the promised land to the agricul- 
tural emigrant of wealth, when the country hereabouts' was 
settled. 

Today it would be the richest but for that difference between 
the white man and the negro. And even now there are big 
plantations which shame the fertility of the soil of the white 
rran's' section. They are the plantations where the negro pre- 
dominates, it is true, but where they are made to work indus- 
triously and closely under the scrutinizing eye of the white 
man. Such a one is the wide domain of President B. B. Comer, 
located in this same section of Barbour County, and which is 
probably the largest farm in the State and in the South, for it 
contains, so it is said, 30,000 acres of creek, hill and level land. 
There are other farms, other plantations, here and there, in 
the Cowikee neighborhood, at Batesville and at Hawkinsville, 
of which the same thing is true, but in the aggregate they form 
only the smaller portion of the section. 

On the whole, the blight of the negro has been put for the 
tjme being. He has not killed the land ; he has only temporarily 
dwarfed its usefulness. As an agricultural Vandal, as a farm- 
ing Goth, the negro is in a class by himself. He has been the 
pawn of fate.iuifortimate himself and a misfortune to the land 
and to the white man. 



'''HE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 143 

In tl^iC da3s of slavery the northern section was the section 
of wealth and of prosperity. In the days' of reconstruction 
the sun of its prosperity grew dim. A higera from the coun- 
try to the town set in. White family after white family left 
■the farm and the plantation for the town and the city. The 
' white folk's house" on the hill was left untenanted or given 
over to the corroding uses of the negro. The tenant system 
was triumphant and the land decayed. 

The white man was' in the town or city learning unfamiliar 
occupations, but in town where his' family might have asso- 
ciates and friends, and where his children might have chance 
and opportunity at an education. The negro plowed, tilled 
and gathered the crops. On the surface, but only on the 
surface, the farm and the plantation grew poorer when the 
negro was at work upon and in charge of them. In the true 
sense of the word the lands were not impoverished. 

Their fertility was only arrested. The restoration to their 
former glory is no difficult matter. It is a thing only of a 
year or two's careful cultivation. And the lands which^are 
under cultivation are the lands upon the plains and the hills. 
The bottom lands, the valley lands, are as rich today as they 
have always been. 

It is the conviction of the thoughtful Alabamian that such a 
section — and there are many others of its kind throughout 
Alabama — is the true place for agricultural immigrants'. Be- 
cause of their history since the war, the lands may be bought 
for a cheaper figure than any other lands of the State. They 
have only been mishandled. And because of their mishandling 
their market value has been placed at a low figure. 

By all means they should be attractive to the intelligent and 
the industrious immigrant. He is not s'et down in a pine 
forest and made to clear his land. It lies open and ready for 
hun. The highways to the city have been built. An intelligent 
and cultured people surround him in the towns and villages. 
I'he thoroughfares to his markets have been built and kept in 
repair. There are schools' and churches not far off. 

He needs only to apply thought and energy to his ready-made 
farm to have it as fertile as any of the fields of Alabama. To 
care and attention the lands respond most quickly. He may 
come in with the assurance that the people of Alabama are not 
selling him their poorest land, as is sometimes done to the 



144 THK ALAUAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

immigrant, but they are selling him their best lands, if he 
treats them right. They are cheap lands, cheaper lands, per- 
haps, than he can buy anywhere else. Some splendid farms 
can be bought as low as $io an acre. Other acres, and rich 
ones, too. when a man cultivates them right, can be bought 
at even a lower figure. 

A hearty welcome, a Southern welcome, awaits them. The 
people want them and will appreciate them. For them the 
latch hangs outside, the door is open and the hand is out- 
stretched. The people want a white section in Nortl; Barbour, 
even as they have it in South Barbour. The negro continues 
to leave rapidly, and the white people want his place supplied 
with the white land owner and the white producer. They 
want the immigrant in colonies', in communities, and they are 
willing to sell their lands cheaply and help the new-comer 
where he wants or needs help. 

THE NEED OE FARMERS. 

"We need the white farmer, and we need him badly," said 
Major J. N. Williams, of Clayton. "The negro is passing as 
an industrial or agricultural factor. The few of them that 
are left and are at work want to rent the lands on their own 
terms, and they want to cultivate it free from any supervision 
by the white man. We need the white man as the West has 
him, the man who rides and plows. We need the white man 
who knows how to use the agricultural implements as they are 
used in the \A'est. The negro is rapidly deserting the farms, 
and his successor should be the white farmer, such as have 
made great the agricultural communities of the West." 

Cashier Browder Pruitt of the Clayton Banking Company 
was firmly of the opinion that Barbour County, the northern 
portion of it, ofifers' perhaps a more inviting field to the immi- 
grant than any other section of the State. 

"The cheapness of the land should certainly be an incentive 
to them," said Mr. Pruitt. "It was the best land in the county. 
I dare say that it would be the best land now with proper care. 
The white people have in a large degree abandoned these 
farms and plantations, not because they were not fertile and 
productive, but because of the preponderance of the negro and 
the longing for the more social life of the towns and cities. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 145 

"The hope of that section, I take it, is the securing of intehi- 
gent and industrious new-comers. The better results would 
come if the immigrants settled in sufficient number to form 
communities. Cheap lands, lands Suitable for any sort of 
crops — truck farming, straight-away farming, as it is done 
today, and an unrivalled climate, easy railroad facilities — should 
be sufficient inducements to bring immigrants to the lands in 
North Barbour." 

He talked of the great thing that it would be to have North- 
ern Barbour dotted with the homes of the white farmers, with 
the well-kept and fertile acres' of the white farmer as one might 
find about Alston. Baker Hill, Texasville and the Clio country. 

Among the check holders that came to the bank window, he 
pointed out the men who were making money and success in 
farming in South and West Barbour. Here was Jessie Morri- 
son, from the white country, who farmed with only "two 
mustang ponies." He had a check for $55.50. It was ex- 
plained that the check was pay for the seventeenth bale of 
cotton he had already marketed during the year. By his' "two 
mustang^ ponies" he expected to get some thirty bales, in all, 
this year. That's good farming, any farmer will tell you. But 
Mr. Morrison '(ivas only one example out of the white section. 
There were many others. 

This County of Barbour is the home county of Governor 
Jelks, and in thinking of it I was reminded of his admiration 
of, and his pride in, the fertile farms' — the white section about 
Lodi, Alston, Texasville, Reeder's Mill and other places. I 
was reminded that he thought these farms, dotting a section of 
peace and plenty, formed a veritable garden spot of Alabama. 
Having it in mind one day, and tired with State cares, he said : 

"It's' a great country, that part of Barbour. Do you know 
I'd like to be there? I'd like to drop everything and luxuriate 
in that section a week. I'd like to spend a week in going from 
farm to farm and from place to place in this section of plenty." 



10 



The Twin Sources of Bibb County^s 
Prosperous Growth 



'^T'wo fountain heads there are, two sources of the stream of 
^i»' the State's commerce. And they dififer as one star diiifers 
from another in glory. 

The mine and the farm are the heads of the two streams 
which unite further down and make the vahmie of the State's 
commerce. The factory grows more and more important. It 
looms' up larger each day. Time will be when the factory will 
be ?s vital to the commerce of the State as the farm and the 
mine, but that time is not now. There be millions and millions 
of dollars turned over each year in Alabama's commerce, but 
most of these millions are turned over in business streams that 
flow forth from mine and farm. 

There must be a ridge, a watershed, dividing these two com- 
mercial streams, a something which stands between and con- 
nects. 

In the rejuvenated town of Andalusia, a good many mi'es 
away from here, the courthouse stands in the middle of the 
public square. It is the crest of the dividing ridge between 
two watersheds'. The Andalusian visitor is invariably shown 
the courthouse and told how the water which runs off one side 
of the roof flows to one river and makes its way to the sea 
while the water which flows off the other side of the roof flows 
to another river and takes another route to the sea. 

THE MINE AND THE FARM. 

A short distance from Centerville. a distance s'o short that 
Centerville itself might be identified as the place in mind, is 
the crest of the ridge which divides mineral and agricultural 
Alabama. To the north is the mine, to the south is the farm. 
.^nd here, on this spot, mine and farm dove-tail into each other. 
It is all wit^'in the Countv of Bibb, and Centreville is all but 
upon the line of demarkation. 



THJ; ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 149 

North of this, the county s'eat, within the County of Bibb, 
is the astonishing town of Blocton, a place which might be 
called a huge mine. A dozen mines there have formed a 
nucleus of four separate towns. Two of them are incorporated. 
All are one settlement and practically one town. There are 
probably some four or five thousand people living in or around 
the mining town of Blocton. 

It is famous for the excellence of its fuel coal, the Blocton 
and Cahaba brands. The Cahaba coal fields have made it, and 
the outcroppings' of these same Cahaba coal fields have run 
down to within six miles of Centerville, and the veins and seams 
come even closer to the town. 

The Cahaba River runs along the coal seams, past and close 
to Centerville, through Dallas County, into the x\labama. And 
en the other side of Centerville and alongside of the Cahaba 
River are the big plantations and the rich farms. And here 
again, within sight of each other, are found the civilization 
of plains and the civilization of the hills. One can stand upon 
the farm of the hill dweller and sweep his eye over the planta- 
tion of the big land owner as it slopes gradually to the river. 
H-re again is found the source for speculation upon the strange 
iiatural law which leads the small farmer to the hills for the 
building of his home and the establishment of his small farm ; 
the law which persuades the planter with means to dwell upon 
t)ic plains and widen his holdings through the years until in 
tiiiie he becomes the holder of thousands of acres. 

THE PLAINS AND HILI-S. 

It is not to be considered strange that in the younger days 
of the State the plains' were the richer and the plantations were 
the more prosperous. Tt is hardly to be doubted that on the 
cotton, plantations the richer and the fuller life was lived. The 
plantation decayed in later years in the same proportion as the 
n'hite man left it. In agriculture, supposedly the strong suit 
of the negro, he has only partially met his trust. 

The small farms' of the white man have grown faster than 
the plantations have increased. The small farm and its white 
owner have always been prosperous. The small farmer has 
nnt only widened the field he formerly occupied, but he has 
Ditched his camp in the new counties, the new section. 



150 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

It is deeply significant that the big plantations', with the negro 
tenant system, are unknown in the "new" sections of Alabama, 
the sections of Alabama which have so developed and which 
have become so prosperous, such as the wiregrass county and 
the counties' to the south of the P>lack Belt. 

But here is Centerville, with the men of the hills and the 
mines on one side and the old, but ever rich and fertile planta- 
tions on the other. And in the best of trade that is in the two 
comes to Centerville. 

Centerville, if it wasn't in Alabama, might be an Alpine 
village. It is that hilly. There is no -way to get to Centerville 
except to go up and down hills. The site of the town itself 
coukl lave been the citad.el of an ancient fortress. If it were 
a time of marauders', trouble breeders and fighters the hill on 
which Centerville stands could be fortified for any sort of de- 
fense. 

The way to it is steep, and it is just round with other pine 
covered eminences. 

COAL AND IRON. 

There is a world of coal in Alabama, because the Appa- 
lachian chain of mountains come to an end within the State. 
They break off rather suddenly in the Birmingham and Gads- 
den districts, and according to their geological ways' the coal 
and iron deposits break rather suddenly out of the earth con- 
vf nient to the hand of man. 

But the foot hills continue further south — a connecting cir- 
cuit between the mountains and the plains. In a gathering of 
thes'e hills along the Cahaba, Centerville was planned and 
founded years and years before the war. The most command- 
ing hill was' selected for the town. Here the town was founded 
according to the old style with a public square and the court- 
nouse in the center. 

The hill is just large enough and none too large for the 
square. The square, with its courthouse and encircling busi- 
ness stores, fits snugly upon the top of the hill. Over the other 
hilisv the residence portion has been built in a rather desultory 
way. After the square is left behind, the streets become county 
roads curved and winding, and bordered for a space with the 
homes of Centerville. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 153 

Down a hill — in whichever way one goes, he has to go down 
a hill — and across the railroad is the fine old home of Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Moren, one of the few Lieutenant-Governors 
Alabama has ever had. And, like the present Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, Dr. Cunningham, Dr. Moren was a ph^-sician. He was 
a strong man, a man with ability and force of character. A 
special interest attaches to him because his term as a Demo- 
cratic State official was sandwiched in between two Radical 
Reconstruction administrations. And during a crisis in these 
trying times, as a Democratic official he held the reins of gov- 
ernment over the Senate with a strong hand and in imminent 
danger of personal violence. It was one of the many dramatic 
incidents in Alabama's history of which the people of the State 
are only too ignorant. 

HIS OLD HOME. 

The old home of the Lieutenant-Governor is still in a fair 
state of preservation, at the foot of the hills, with the Cahaba 
River running behind it not so many yards away. It sits in 
an old-fashioned flower yard shaded with oaks and mock orange 
trees, and surrounded by fertile acres of corn and cotton. 

It is one of the rich plantations of the whole section. The 
whole of it is on the river, and that which is in sight of the 
home is almost as level as a floor. It is a beautiful place for 
farming. And the place has been prosperous' throughout all 
its years. 

"It is a fine place, a very fine place," said F. H. Nunnellee, 
of The Centreville Press, who had pointed it out. "It is, 
however, a fair sample of the fertility of the land which lies 
along the river and in the southwestern portion of the county. 
All the Moren acres would total up about 2,000. The Howison 
place has 5,000 acres in it, the Davidson place 3,000 acres, the 
Cooper place 1,000 acres, the Avery place probably 2.000. So 
you see we have some big plantations here in Bibb, as well as 
the Black Belt folks. In the best farming country of Bibb 
County, across the river, and in the western portion of the 
county, the land is as rich as that of the big cotton section to 
the south of us. I dare say our crops will equal the best of 
theirs. In this section of which I speak the land is held at too 
high a figure. Some of it, I dare say, could not be bought 



154 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

at all. For other acres $20 would be asked. Much land, and 
good farming land, too, can be bought at cheaper figures, but 
our farming lands about here are not going abegging for pur- 
chasers. 

THE SMALL FARMERS. 

"To the north of the city, and within sight, are the hills. 
The farms among them are small but prosperous. The white 
farmer always manages to get along and do well for his com- 
munity. 

"The mines about Blocton have started some of the farmers 
in the northwestern part of the county in truck farming. The 
n'iines increased the demand for garden truck, and the farmers 
nearbv quickly saw the money there was to be made in the 
business'. Some of these farmers have no other interest. Grow- 
ing vegetables where there is such a demand as there is in 
these mining towns brings in much more money than the farmer 
could get from cotton and corn crops. There are many of 
them who might be named who grow- no cotton or corn at all. 



The Tennessee Valley 



a Federal General, when asked after the war between the 
States which section of the South he most admired, 
promptly replied, "There is' no section of the South or North 
which, for the happy and prosperous habitation of man, equals 
that beautiful section known as the Tennessee Valley, in North 
Alabama." This wisdom of the lamented Gen. John A. Logan 
is verified not only by the casual observer, but by the student of 
those things most calculated to make life prosperous and fruit- 
ful of contentment. The Tennessee Valley, in the common 
acceptation of the term, embraces a section of eight counties, 
four of which lie between the Tennessee River and the Ten- 
nessee State line, and four south of the Tennessee River. The 
two tiers of counties extending across the State from the 
Georgia to the Mississippi line. This matchless section pre- 
sents a variety of soil which is incident to the topography of the 
innd— a county which represents picturesque mountains and 
fertile plains. The eastern counties, primarily Jackson and 
Marshall, are broken with rich hills and valleys which evinced 
their fertility in the opening up of the country by a magnificent 
forest. The hills were the chosen home of cedar giants, oak, 
hickory, chestnut, poplar and other favorite lumber, and today 
many of the towering cedar telephone poles in our cities' claim 
their growth in Jackson and Marshal. But the valleys in 
these counties were the attraction. Rich deep soil, a soil which 
first produced the deep forest, now yields the finest golden grain 
in the land. It is claimed, and the claim substantiated, that 
the Paint Rock Valley, in Jackson County, and similar valleys 
in Marshal, not infrequently produced one hundred bushels 
of corn to the acre, and produced wheat, oats and rye in sim- 
ilar abundance. West of these two counties, divided by the 
Tennessee River, are the Counties of Madison and Morgan — 
Madison for years past, by reason of her great fertility and 
the enterprise of her citizens, has been the banner agricultural 
county of the State, winning in every competitive State fair 
exhibit, and at the Nashville Exposition the varietv and per- 
fection of her agricultural products won the plaudits of the 
world. 



158 THE ALABAMA OrPORTUXITV. 

IMPRESS OF PIONEERS. 

Morc;-an County, along the river and the rich valleys receding' 
from the hills, presents some of the most productive and beau- 
tiful fields in Alabama. Right here population, the character 
of the tillers of the soil is a proper matter of inquiry. The 
pioneers of this country left their impress upon succeeding 
generations and did much to mould the class and character of 
the people. For illustration, there were but few original large 
land owners in Jackson County in the early days, hence but 
few negroes, as negroes were the creatures of the wealthy. 
Perhaps more than three-fifths of that population is white, and 
an equal percentage in Marshal. The percentage of races as 
originally established seem to hold its own. If anything, the 
decrease is upon the negro side. The white people of Jackson 
and Marshal are a hardy, virtuous, self-reliant, law-abiding, 
hospitable, excellent citizenship, the best neighbors and friends 
on earth. These counties offer some wonderful attractions to 
the home seeker. The County of Madison, the first and leading 
home of wealth and culture in* the valley, was populated by 
the finer haired aristocratic element of the South, a refined, 
elegant people, and they owned and established large plantations 
and populated them with negroes. Thus', in Madison you find 
much culture, an advanced condition, and now, that negro labor 
is becoming scarce from numerous causes, much fine productive 
soil is oflfered to the Northern prospector at reasonable prices. 

The Counties of Limestone, Lauderdale, Colbert and Law- 
rence present both of the original first settler class. One por- 
tion of each of these counties are settled almost exclusively by 
whites, and the other portion the old plantation system remains. 
The whites' represent the labor on the smaller farms, the negro 
the larger old-time ante bellum plantations. The counties of 
Limestone and Lauderdale, north of the river. Colbert and 
Lawrence, south of the river, present to the home-seeker at- 
tractions eaual to those of their eastern sister counties. Indeed, 
No'-th Colbert and Lawrence cannot be excelled in fields of 
matchless fertility. 

THE EN'IDEXCES OF FERTILITY. 

The home seeker, being a man of reason, will naturally look 
to the substantial evidences of fertilitv. health, social and edu- 
cational surroundings. Any man of intelligence knows that 




"THE GREAT SOIL BUILDER. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 161 

forest g-iants of ash, oak. hickory, poplar and walnut do not 
grow on soil lacking in elements of fertility, hence we first 
invite attention to the present remaining silent witnesses as to 
the great fertility of the soil. 

The Tennessee river drains this section from east to west, 
it is' a river of great beauty, rapid current, and many shoals 
and -falls. The celebrated Muscle shoals, lying between Col- 
bert and Lauderdale. We refer to this as an evidence of rapid 
drainage, and beg to state that the conclave slope is towards 
this river from North and South, and that emptying into it are 
many swift and beautiful large streams of clear crystal water, 
passing over shoals and white gravel beds. Owing to the 
topography of the country th^re are no sluggish streams pos- 
sible in this section, hence but little if any local cause for ma- 
laria. The beautiful crystal streams the outlet of innumerable 
springs are entitled to a place in the evidences of the grandeur 
of this' section. The waters are clear, cold and sparkling, 
they mirror the beauties of heaven and smile when touched 
by the wing of a pleasure seeking bird. No malaria finds 
place in these swift, bubbling laughing waters. In their bosom 
can be found the bass, sun perch and game salmon in abund- 
ance. To those who have lived in flat countries with sluggish 
streams, the banks of our little rivers present a picture of 
health restoring virtues. The reader must understand that 
our lowest point is six hundred feet above the Ohio Valley, 
if this were not true, our beautiful Tennessee, with its pic- 
turesque falls, would be running up hill to Paducah, Ky., 
\\?here it empties its crystal waters into the Ohio. The magni- 
ficent drainage of the Tennessee Valley makes it the homes 
of the most robust vigorous manhood and loveliest type of 
womanhood. It is said to be the natural nursery for teething 
babies, that fewer die in this climate than elsewhere on earth 
and they are brought here from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, 
often in a dying condition, to recover their health. This is 
but an evidence we cite of the health conditions of this coun- 
try. There may be a narrow strip of land subject to over- 
flow along the banks of the Tennessee, but there are no 
svv^amps possible. 



162 THK ALABAMA OPPOKTUXITV. 

CHEAP LANDS. 

The lands in the Valley are cheap, but not because of lack 
of fertility, but because of scarcity of labor, the negro having 
swarmed to cities', the mineral fields and government works. 
Therefore lands can be bought here, fine lands, which produce 
in great abundance either wheat, oats, rye, corn, cotton, sugar ^ 
cane, from eight to twenty-five dollars an acre, according to 
improvements. We here clip from a letter written by a former 
citizen of Minnesota for publication a man of character and 
intelligence. 

SMALL GRAINS. 

"Small grains of every description will do well here. It may 
be a surprise to our readers to know that the average yield 
of winter wheat in Madison County will equal the Spring 
wheat yield of Minnesota, — that with proper cultivation we 
raise as much corn to the acre as Illinois, that our broom corn 
yield is equal to that of Wisconsin; that our yield of tobacco 
will equal the far famed Connecticut \^alley, while our tame 
grasses of every description when well cared for. will equal 
those of Ohio and Indiana." 

MARKETS. 

The limited space compels the writer to' avoid detail, but 
convenient markets are matters of great consideration to pro- 
ducers. The Southern railway passes through this valley 
from east to west, traversing every county in it, excepting 
Marshall. This' county has the N. C. & St. L. railroad pass 
through it. The L. & N. crosses the Southern at Decatur, 
near the central of the valley, hence we find, that Memphis. 
Nashville, Chattanooga, Birmingham, four great cities of con- 
sumers of farm products are in four hours run from the centre 
of this section and of course nearer the outer limits. These 
cities can and should be fed from this garden of fertility, and 
furnish a ready market for all produce. Then for local mar- 
kets. There are the cities of Bridgeport. Scottsboro, Hunts- 
ville. Decatur. New Decatur. Courtland, Tuscumbia. Florence, 
Sheffield and Athens, with populations ranging from two 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 163 

thousand* to twenty thousand as well as many minor country 
towns. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway 
passes through Madison County from North to South, cross- 
ing the great main line of the Southern at Huntsville and 
thence south passing through Marshall. It also enters Jack- 
son county connecting with the Southern at Stevenson. The L. 
& N. connects also with the Southern at Florence in Lauder- 
dale. The North Alabama and Birmingham Mineral rail- 
way traverses the county of Colbert from the famous city of 
Sheffield, crossing the Southern at Tuscumbia. Limestone 
County has both the L. & N. main line and Southern. -So 
railroads abound and freight rates are very low. 

FREE PIKES ABOUND. 

The condition of beautiful pikes, free pikes, adds a wonder- 
ful attraction to our country. Being a country of natural pic- 
turesque surroundings, it is by no means strange that this 
garden spot of fertility and beauty should be greatly enhanced 
as the home of man by splendid public roads. These beautiful 
hard macadamized pikes, are specially an attraction to the en- 
terprising, as no man likes to bury his family in the country 
beyond impassable mud-holes. Therefore it is with pride that 
the people of this country point to their free pike system, and 
say to their Northern brethren, you see we are not unmindful 
of the blessings nature has showered upon us, and we have 
shown our appreciation by building a road system which would 
justly excite the admiration and envy of the world. Perhaps 
to many Northern people it is a surprise to know that' four 
counties in the Tennessee valley have perfect hard stone ma- 
cadamized free pikes. The Counties of Madison, Jackson, 
Colbert and Lauderdale have free and beautiful macadamized 
pikes. There is more free pikeage in the Tennessee Valley 
than in any similar sction south of the Mason and Dixon line. 
These roads are beautifully kept up by honest labor. While 
the public roads in the other counties are not so fine as those 
mentioned, still for nine months in the year they are splendid. 

EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES. 

The educational facilities' have been greatly advanced in the 
last six years, Alabama having greatly increased her school 



164 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

appropriations. In every neighborhood in the Tennessee Val- 
ley, you can find a good public school. High grade certifi- 
cates are required and state examination of teachers made. 
Hence you have every facility for educating your children. 
Iji addition to this advance in appropriation for educational 
purposes, it is now invited by our Constitution that a local 
taxation for s'chool purposes be enjoyed in each county inde- 
pendent of the others, that is, you can now have schools ac- 
cording to your own notion provided three fifths of the voters 
favor it. Practically only whites vote: so the spirit of self- 
government stimulated by self interest, will bring about this 
local taxation. But without it, you still have a fine school 
system in the valley, which now under our advanced system 
have the best of rural educational advantages. 

SOCIAL AND BUSINESS RELATIONS. 

The people of this country are a well bred people, they are 
courteous, hospitable, they realize that we are land poor, and 
that it is essential to our prosperity that we have the sturdy 
industrious Northern far.mer locate with us. When he comes 
here, we endeavor to make him contented, so that his good 
influence will induce others'. We have thousands of North- 
ern farmers in the Tennessee Valley. They represent every 
state in the North, and every one who comes here, becomes a 
friend of our country and a helper in building it up, here he 
finds rich soil, cheap from lack of demand, here lie finds >a 
genial climate, never too hot, never cold, going to neither ex- 
treme, a sun stroke or a frozen person being unknown. He 
finds a law abiding people, a refined, polite and accommodating 
class, good neighbors in sickness and health, people who are 
not eternally in pursuit of the dollar, but who act from a 
neighborly standpoint. Owing to climatic and soil conditions, 
the minirnum labor here produces the maximum result. ' For 
twelve months in the year you can work out doors and during 
that time not suffer a moments loss of sleep from a warm night, 
for we have no hot nights in the Valley — and but few cold ones. 
60 is our mean temperature, giving us from 90 to 30 as our 
average, although we have had extreme cases, where the tem- 
perature dropped to zero. These are few and far between 
spells and last but a few hours. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 165 

LANDS. 

Now we present to you that lands are very cheap, their pro- 
ductiveness considered. Think of buying lands for ten dollars 
which will produce without fertilizer 35 bushels of corn and 
subject to great improvement. The foundation of our soil is 
red clay. If the soil has washed away, you could take a disc 
plow, break the clay deep, harrow with a disc and plant in 
field peas, and in two years you have as fertile a field as you 
ever saw and a crop of peas each year which will compensate 
■you for your labor and rent. 

STOCK COUNTRY. 

As a stock producing country this section will equal the 
blue grass region of Kentucky. In fact blue grass grows here 
luxuriantly, and the Bermuda grass, a hardy nutritious graz 
ing grows most luxuriantly. The oats of the Tennessee Val- 
ley like the corn and clover cannot be excelled. The stock 
water from free stone springs is at hand every where. The 
climate is most favorable, in fact it is seductive, many placing 
so great reliance on climate, that they rnake no winter pro- 
vision for young stock. This is a mistake, as young stock 
should be protected from weather and not left dependent upon 
old fields for winter support. We once heard a successful 
farmer living near Athens, in Limestone county, say, ("When 
a farmer is equipped with sheds for his stock in winter, and 
provides suitable feed to carry them through December, Jan- 
uary, February and March, they grow up around him spon- 
taneously. He cited his own success in raising, mules, colts, 
sheep, cattle and hogs. Hog raising here is easy.) A hog 
can be raised at a nominal cost, we asked M. C. Cobb, of 
Madison county, who was oflfering four hogs weighing on 
average three hundred and eighty pounds, what it cost to raise 
them. He said, "They are eleven months old, and they have 
cost me nothing except a lot of refuse corn, corn that I did 
not desire putting in the trough for the horses, especially 
when I had an abundance of sound corn — in short." said he, 
"They saved what I would have thrown away." The reader 
must not deceive himself with the idea, that we have no fine 
stock hogs here, and no enterprising spirits who raise them, 
for while they are not frequent, still we have them. 



166 THE ALABAMA OI'l'ORTUNlTY. 

PROGRESS IN STOCK BREEDING. 

We will here remind him. that in two miles of the City of 
Huntsville the world beating butter producing Jersey, Lilly 
Flag, was calved and developed. The three finest cows, taking 
first premium at Chicago Exposition came from Madison 
County. There are imported jacks here, and some of the 
standard bred stallions of the world claim their home in Mad- 
ison, Lawrence and Jackson Counties. Many car loads of 
cattle, sheep and hogs are shipped from the Valley. When 
you find a country where four out of eight counties have a mag- 
nificent system of free macadamized public roads, you need 
not expect to catch it slip shod or down at the heel.' It is not a 
good country for missionary work, it takes a pretty live man 
to keep step with the music of our progress. Still we do not 
disguise the fact that we have a surplus' of land, that it is ow- 
ing to the fact that our negro labor is unreliable. In short we 
have more land than white men can cultivate, and we want re- 
liable home owners, men who will take care of the lands. If 
the reader will divest himself of the idea that he knows more 
about it than we do,, who have been on the groimd, will come 
here and take in the situation intelligently, he will find why ex- 
isting conditions prevail — and why lands are sold very cheap, 
their productiveness considered. All these are questions which 
address themselves to the intelligent Northern man who does 
not look at the conditions with a telescope but comes here and 
absorbs information. 

SHEEP RAISING. 

We would hardly presume that a man would use \^alley land 
which would produce sixty bushels of corn to the acre for 
pasturing sheep. It is true it would produce clover, timothy, 
peas, bermuda, so luxuriantly that he might lose his herd in 
its thickness, but our third rate lands afford the finest range 
for sheep, lands that could be bought for five dollars. There 
is a class of land which produces a tough hardy oak, "post 
oak lands," this land can be found in spots in the Northern tier 
of counties near the Tennessee line. Fine water abounds and 
good grazing here withers and dies without use. Such spots 
are noted for their healthfulness, in fact so great is it that a 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 1G7 

funeral of a native in such sections attract wide spread at- 
tention. A physician who resided near Pettusville in the North 
east corner of Limestone county, a few miles south of the Ten- 
nessee line, said, he had practiced medicine in that country 
thirty years, and never lost a patient under eighty years of 
age. In this remarkable scope of country which we admire 
for manv reasons other than its fertility, there are many 
springs of wonderful medicinal c|uality. Springs' which have 
produced cures, which would have rendered a less obscure 
country famous, still this section is in eighteen miles at most re- 
mote point from the L. & N. R. R. on the west, and perhaps 
twenty from the Southern on the South. So the reader must 
be persuaded that we have man}- kinds of soil and country in 
this Northern tier of Alabama Counties. 

THE MOUNTAIN TOP. 

We would do violence to Marshall, Alorgan and Lawrence 
were we to omit that now famous section known as the top 
of sand Mountain, a section lying south of the Tennessee and 
back beyond the valley, perhaps a distance ranging from five 
to twenty miles from the river, the width of the fertile valley 
being goverened by the windings of the river or Mountain. 
Before the war a man was regarded as' a mere sciuatter who 
built his cabin and who himted bear, deer and turkey on Sand 
Mountain. The soil while producing tall pines and other Sand 
Mountain growth, was regarded by comparison as too poor 
for cultivation, this is not so to-day. The fact has been re- 
vealed that this sandy soil with a little fertilizer, produces the 
finest staple- of cotton grown in this' section. From a wilder- 
ness at a cost of from one to two dollars an acre, it has become 
the site of many beautiful and prosperous farms. A new and 
industrious class have settled here, some of the best of Geor- 
gia's enterprising farmers making it their home. This section 
now has railroad conveniences and those who want to reside 
on a mountain top can find here soil which will produce the 
finest of potatoes, anything in the line of truck gardening, 
beautiful grapes, peaches, apples and pears, and the best water 
melons on earth. There is considerable acreage here unoc- 
cupied. We, however, do not insist that the conveniences of 
life abound back on the Mountain as they do in the beautiful 



168 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Valley north of it, still this section has grown in villages, 
schools, churches, taxable wealth, more than any section we 
lecall. 

RELIGION AND SOCIETY. 

It is claimed that there is a larger percentage of church 
membership in- the Tennessee Valley than elsewhere in the 
South, and it is asserted by the highest authority that churches 
are better kept up in the Valley than in any section of the 
Union. The writer is scarcely an authority upon this subject 
further than a practical observation goes, but taking the claim 
of those in position to know what they are talking about, 
substantiated as it is by our observation, we can but conclude 
in line of the thinking men of the country, that virtue, good 
morals, good society and all the higher elements of manhood 
must ensue from or follow this large church membership 
condition. It is claimed that to be a Methodist Circuit Rider, 
or presiding elder in the Huntsville circuit which embraces the 
Valley, is to hold a position which for fine dinners, elegant pla- 
ces to lodg'i, cannot be excelled by the crowned heads of the 
world. This speaks well for the country, shows that good so- 
ciety abounds. In fact any man would do violence to his fam- 
ilv who w.juld locate where he could not hear a church bell 
ring. H( can hear them in the Valley and hear them often, 
for our people are a law-abiding God-loving people, the class 
it is nice to live with and wise to die by. 



Sketch of the Mineral Resources of Alabama. 

LJY EUGK^li A. SMITH, STATE GEOLOGIST. 



For the consideration of its mineral resources, the State of 
Alabama may conveniently be divided into two unequal parts, 
separated by a curving line drawn from the northwestern 
corner of the State around by Tuscaloosa, Centreville, and 
Montgomery, to Columbus, Ga. To the northwestw^ar'd of 
this lin^ lies tht so-called Mineral Belt or District, compri- 
sing about i^¥0-fifths cf the area of the state; to the southwest- 
ward is the Agricultural or Timber Belt, embracing the re- 
maining three-fifths of the area. In the last named division 
the useful minerals aie confined, practically, to the clays, the 
ochres, the marls and the phosphates, while the great bulk 
of the minerals of economic value are to be found in the first 
nam-.d division 

THE MINERAL BELT. 

For our purpose we may divide the Mineral District into 
three regions, which are: i, the Gold Region; 2, the Valley 
Region ; and 3, the Coal Measures. 

I. The Gold Region. — This is embraced in a triangular 
area, taking in parts or all of the following counties : Cle- 
burne, Clay, Talladega, Coosa. Chilton, Elmore, Tallapoosa, 
Randolph, Chambers and Lee. The mineral productions which 
are characteristic of this section are the gold ores, copper ores, 
pyrites', mica, and kaoiin, corundufn, and asbestus. 

Gold.— -In Cleburne county there are several places where 
a large amount of gold has been obtained in the past. The 
best known of these localities are Arbacoochee and Chulafin- 
nee. At the first named place the gravels at Dine creek have 
yielded the greater part cf the gold, but a }'€ar or two ago a 
quartz vein was e>:])Osed which carried a very large amount of 
free gold. This nbce is now in litigation, and nothing has 
been d'me with it snce its first discovery. From the great 
quantity of gold obtained from the placers about Arbacoochee, 



170 THE ALAUAMA OPI'ORTUXITV. 

it is reasc^'ial^.le lo In^'er the c,\\'-tence of rich veins here. Tn 
the 'J'urkcv Haven ^Jountam and along- its flanks, are many 
places where some df velopnu.>nts have been made for gold, but 
at none of these, at this time, is any active work going on. 

In Clay county there are several localities' where gold min- 
ing has been conducted with more or less success, viz., in the 
Goldberg district near the eastern line of Clay, bordering on 
Randolph ; at the Franklin mines near Idaho ; and at the Ivey 
mines in the same neighborhood. 

In Randolph county is one of the oldest of the gold mines 
of the state, viz., the Pinetucky mine, which has been in con- 
tinuous' operation for forty years or more. 

In Tallapoosa county we find two belts of gold-bearing rocks 
'running northeast and southwest; i. the Goldville-Hog ^Nloun- 
tain belt, and 2. the Silver Hill belt. Both of tl^ese were the 
scenes of active mining operations before the discovery of* the 
California gold, and at the present time some work is going 
on in both districts. 

In the Goldville district cyanide plants' have been put in 
operation at the Ulrich mine and at Hog Mountain, and the 
result has been to demonstrate beyond question that the ex- 
traction of gold by this process from comparatively low grade 
ores can be effected with profit. Near Hog Mountain on the 
site of the old Ealy mines, the Messrs. Hood have sunk a 
shaft and a slope and are now putting in the machinery for 
work on a large s'cale. 

In the Silver Hill district some mining work has been going 
on for many years at Blue Hill, Gregory Hill, etc., but the re- 
cent purchase of some of these properties by parties who are 
intending to introduce the cyanide process, wall probably soon 
be .followed by increased activity in this district. 

Across the Coosa river in Elmore and Chilton counties there 
are several places well known to the gold miners in the early 
days, and worked for gold in a small way even in recent times. 

Many of the failures attending the attempts at gold mining 
m this State, especially after the rich placers of Arbacoochee 
and Chulafinnee and the Goldville and Silver Hill regions had 
been well worked over are to be attributed to bad manage- 
ment, and the use of methods which were ill adapted to the 
character of the ore. The success of the Hillabee Company at 
Hog Mountain has demonstrated in this state what the Theiss 



TUH ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 171 

mines has in South Carolina, viz : that with suitable methods 
of extraction the low grade ores can be mined and milled with 
profit, and we look confidently forward to the time when pay- 
ing gold mines will be in operation in all of the counties named, 
and perhaps in others. 

\Miile small traces of gold may be found in the strata of 
almost all of the geological formations of Alabama (since these 
liave derived from ancient rocks which carry the gold veins), 
yet it would be folly to expend any money in the search for 
gold outside of the region above defined, and for that matter 
no paying deposit of gold ore has been known to occur- in the 
southeastern half of this region of the crystalline rocks, com- 
monly spoken of as the gold region. All the gold worth men- 
tioning from this region occurs to the north and west of a line 
passing northeast and southwest through D^deville in Talla- 
poosa county. Reports of discoveries of gold mines outside 
of the gold region are common enough, but when sifted down 
they may always be shown to be based on the mistaking of iron 
pyrites or some other mineral for gold, or upon fraud. We 
have had notable cases of the latter in the Tennessee Valley, 
near Guntersville, and in the DeSoto mines on the Coosa 
river. 

Copper. — Twenty years ago there was much interest in 
copper, and hundreds of test pits were made at various' points 
in Cleburne, Clay. Coosa, Tallapoosa and other counties of 
this region. At only one point, however, viz : at Wood's Cop- 
per Mine, near Stonehill P. O. in Cleburne county, was any 
considerable amount of copper won. Here, under the direc- 
tion of Capt. Adolph Thiess. work was carried on for several 
}ears. and a large amount of copper ore raised and shipped to 
I'.altimore. These operations were carried on till all the richer 
surface ores had been exhausted, and the mining of the body of 
the vein, a superfluous pyrites, had become unprofitable because 
of the low grade of the ore and the difficulties of transporta- 
tion. X^othing has been done here since 1876 or 1877 until 
about 1895. when a company has again opened up the mine 
and raised a considerable amount of ore, which still lies piled 
about the mouth of the shaft, awaiting transportation facili- 
ties. 

At intervals along the pyrite belt next to be considered, the 
ere contains a notable percentage of copper, but this metal has 



172 . THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

not, so far as I am aware, been profitably mined at any place 
except at Stone Hill and vicinity. 

Pyrites. — Along the eastern flank of the Talladega Moun- 
tain there is a narrow outcrop of a green schist, which may be 
followed almost without interruption from Chilton county to 
the Georgia line. This is known throughout this' section as 
the Copper-lead, although, as above stated, very little copper 
has been extracted from any part of it. On the other hand 
beds of pyrites of very considerable importance occur at sev- 
eral places along this outcrop. Near Gold Branch, in Coosa 
county, and in the vicinity of Dean P. O. in Clay county, es- 
pecially the latter, mining operations of considerable magnituae 
have been carried on. The old Montgomery Copper Works 
were upon this lead, and further to the southwest the McGhee 
copper mine, although from neither was any great amount 
of copper ever obtained. 

This pyrite bed has recently been reopened at Pyriton, near 
the site of the old Montgomery Copper Works, and the ore is 
now being shipped to the chemical works at Graselli and to 
other points. The extension of the Eastern R. R. of Alabama 
from Talladega to these mines has made this development a 
possibility. 

Below the McGhee mine, and apparently not connected ge- 
ologically with the copper lead, are the Hatchett creek mines, 
under the direction of Capt. Lewis. The Pyrite of the Hatch- 
ett creek deposit seems to be free from sand and impurities, 
and the same is true of that of the copper lead at many 
points, although in places it is mixed with quartz sand. Near 
Graphite, in Clay county, there is an occurrence of magnetic 
pyrite, which contains also a small percentage of copper. 

There s'eems to be no reason why some of these deposits 
of pyrite should not, with better facilities for transportation, 
and especially if plants were established for the manufacture of 
sulphuric acid on the spot, be of economic importance. The 
copper ores of Cleburne county, above mentioned, might 
well be used in the same way, in addition to their use as sour- 
ces of copper. 

Pyrite is one of the commonest of minerals, occurring in 
geological formations of all ages, and even now in process of 
formation wherever the conditions are suitable. But unless 
it is in laree bodies it is one of the most useless. As above 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 173 

noted it is very commonly mistaken for gold, hence the popular 
name of fools' gold applied to it. 

Mica. — In the northwestern part of Randolph and the ad- 
jacent parts of Cleburne and Clay, occur veins of coarse- 
grained granite, technically known as pegmatite, in which 
the constituents of granite, viz., quartz, mica and feldspar, 
usually in small grains here assume gigantic proportions, 
often making masses a foot or more in dimensions. From 
the mica bowlders, as they are termed, sheets of marketable 
size and quality may be obtained. Mr. J. M. Phillips and 
others in the vicinity of Pinetucky, and at Pinetucky itself, 
have pretty thoroughly tested these veins, but the want df rail- 
road facilities will for some time act as a bar to the profitable 
mmmg: of this mineral. At many other places from Pinetucky 
towards the southwest as far as Chilton county, these coarse- 
grained granite veins have been tested and are known to con- 
tain mica of good quality. 

Kaolin. — In these coarse-grained granite veins, the feldspar, 
especially above the water level, is generally far progressed 
towards disintegration and decay, and in many places convert- 
ed into kaolin. Every locality in which the mica occurs might 
also be cited as a locality for kaolin, but nowhere has' this ma- 
terial been actually mined for commercial purposes, although 
when the region is traversed by railroads its development will 
certainly follow. The northwestern part of Randolph county 
and adjacent parts of Clay and Cleburne are particularly rich 
in kaolin deposits. 

Corimdiiiii and asbestus. — Some of the rocks of this region 
yield upon exposure to atmospheric agencies, as decomposi- 
tion products, both asbestus and corundum, but in no place 
as yet have either of these minerals been found in Alabama in 
deposits of commercial value, nor does there seem to be any 
good reason for thinking that such deposits will be found. 

Graphite. — This substance is very generally distributed 
among the metamorphic or crystalline rocks, and it occurs in 
two modes. In the feeble crystalline schists or slates which we 
have called the Tallackga, and which in part, at least are pale- 
ozoic sediments, of as late age as the Coal Measures, the graph- 
ite is very 'often found as a sort of black graphitic clay free 
from grit and is frequently used as a lubricant. In this condi- 
tion, the graphite is very difficult to separate from the other 



174 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

matters with which it is mixed. Examples of this mode of 
occurrence are to be seen near Millerville, in Clay county, and 
about Blue Hill and Gregory Hill, in Tallapoosa. 

In the mica schists and other fully crystalline rocks of this 
region the graphite is present in the form of thin flakes, or 
lamellae, and is comparatively easy to separate from the enclos- 
ing rock. This variety of graphite has been worked at several 
points' in Clay, Coosa, and Chilton counties. 

Sorne of the graphitic schists hold as much as 20 per cent, of 
graphite, but the average content is less. The belt of graphitic 
rocks extend from Chilton county northeastward into Georgia. 

In Tallapoosa county a mile below Tallassee there is a third 
mode of occurrence, or perhaps a modification of the second 
above described. Here a belt of garnetiferous' schist crosses 
the river in an outcrop of about 100 yards width. In this schist 
the graphite is found in lenses or flakes which sometimes attain 
a diameter of two inches. As the rock disintegrates the graph- 
ite lenses weather out and are scattered loose ovqr the surface. 
The same belt or a similar one is to be seen where it crosses 
Wolf creek in the northern portion of Macon county. 

II. The Valley Region. — This region, or rather the Coosa 
Valley, .which is its chief division, occupies a strip some forty 
miles' wide, running northeast and southwest between .the Gold 
region on the one side and the Coal measures on the other. 
Beyond the Coosa Valley to the northwest, interpolated be- 
tween the dififerent coal fields, are the outlying valleys, Qahaba, 
Jones', Wills'. Murphree's and Blountsville. or Big Spring 
\'alley, with the great Tennessee Valley lying to the north and 
west of the Warrior Coal Field. This Valley region is the 
southwestern prolongation of the \"alley of East Tennessee and 
the Valley of Virginia, and it is based generally upon calca- 
reous or limestone rocks, though great mountain forming 
masses of sandstone and shale occur in it. 

Associated with the limestones of these valleys are the brown 
iron ores and ochres, the kaolins and the beauxites, while in 
manv of the ridges bordering, especially Wills'. Murphree's 
and Jones' Valleys, are the great beds (jf red hematite or fos- 
siliferous iron ore. upon which, in large measure, the prom- 
inence of Alabama as a producer of iron depends. Important 
in the manufacture of iron are also the beds of limestone and 
dolomite which are used as fluxes ; these likewise are products 
of the vallevs. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 175 

Broivn hematite or Uuionite. — This most valuable ore of iron 
is found in largest quantity in the Coosa, Murphree's and Jones' 
Valleys, though deposits of it also occur in the Tennessee Val- 
ley, notably in the vicinity of Russellville in Franklin county. 

Some of the most important of these ore banks are to be 
found about Baker Hill, Bluffton, Rock Run, Langdon City, 
etc., in Cherokee county; near Piedmont, 'Jacksonville, An- 
niston, Talladega, Ironaton, in Calhoun; near Shelby and Mon- 
tevallo in Shelby ; about Tannehill and Woodstock near the 
borders of Jefferson, Bibb, and Tuscaloosa counties'; and near 
Oneonto in Blount county. This ore has been worked at the 
places named, but there are numerous other localities where 
the ore is known to occur in quantity, though as yet undevel- 
oped. 

Ochre. — In connection with some of the banks of brown ore, 
are beds of yellow and red ochre, none of which, however, in 
Alabama, have come into notice by actual use. There is one 
bed of red ochre' of remarkably fine color and measurably free 
from impurities; near Talladega, from which a considerable 
quantity has been obtained by way of samples, but as yet not 
for commercial purposes. The price paid even for the best 
ochres is small,' and this circumstance has deterred the owners 
of ochre beds from making any expensive developments in 
this direction. 

Kaolins and Porcelain Clays. — Associated with the brown 
iron ores in Cherokee and Calhoun counties, there are some 
beds of soft white clay very closely approaching kaolin in 
composition and quality. These have not as yet been utilized 
in the manufacture of fine stone ware, though apparently well 
suited thereto both in regard to quantity and quality. 

Near Valley Head in DeKalb county there is a bed of hard 
white porcelain clay, close to the mineral haUoysite in com- 
position, which has been worked for a number of years. Some 
china ware made from it has taken prizes at many of the ex- 
positions of recent years. This is the best known and most 
thoroughly tested of any of the deposits of fine clay in the 
State. In the Tennessee A^alley near the Mississippi line there 
are great beds of white clay which have also been used in the 
manufacture of fine stone ware as well as of fire brick and tiles, 
but there is no systematic work now being carried on at any 
place in this section. 



176 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Bauxite. — At this time, bauxite, which is the ore of alumi- 
num, is known to occur in this State only in DeKalb, Cherokee, 
Calhoun and Talladega counties. Near Rock Run in Chero- 
kee are located the main mines of this mineral in the United 
States, which lie mostly in Alabama though partly in Geor- 
gia. This locality furnishes practically all the bauxite now 
mined in this country. It is in very close association with the 
banks of brown iron ore and kaolin or white clays already 
mentioned. 

In Calhoun county several occurrences of bauxite have been 
discovered, but they have not been opened up and the quality 
of the bauxite is therefore unknown. In composition this 
mineral is essentially a hydrated oxide of alumina, correspond- 
ing to the hydrated oxide of iron, which constitutes the brown 
hematite iron ore. Most of the bauxite sent. from this State 
is used in the manufacture of alum, and not for the manufac- 
ture of the metal aluminum. 

Red Hematite Ore. — This, the most important ore of iron 
in this State, occurs in beds of varying thickness and of vary- 
ing degrees of purity in the Red Mountain ridges which are 
found usually on both sides of the long narrow valleys which 
he to the northwest of the Coosa Valley, i. e., in Wills', Mur- 
phree's, Jones' and in some small degree in the Cahaba Valley. 
The ore is very unevenly distributed along these ridges, being 
at some points near Birmingham over thirty feet in thickness, 
but dwindling down to inconsiderable dimensions both towards 
the northeast and the southwest. In similar way the red ore 
ridges on the two sides of the valleys are seldom of equal value. 
The main localities along the Red Mountain ranges where the 
ore is mined are in the vicinity of Birmingham and Bessemer, 
where for several miles mining operations are practically con- 
tinuous.' Here the ore is also at its thickest, being in places 
over thirty feet thick, though at this time only a fourth or a 
fifth is mined, the rest being too high in silica for profitable 
use at the prevailing low prices of iron. In time, however, 
and probably at no distant date, the whole of this immense bed 
of ore will be utilized, since experiments recently carried out 
by the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company have practically dem- 
onstrated the fact that by the use of magnetic concentrators, 
after first rendering the ore magnetic by heating it in a fur- 
nace in contact with producer gas. the low grade, ores can be 
so far freed from silica as to make them available. 



THI5 ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 177 

Another important center of red ore production is about At- 
talla and Gadsden, but the ore is also mined at intervals be- 
tween Springville and Attalla. and all along Wills' Valley, 
from Attalla to the Georgia line, and also east of Lookout 
^Mountain, at Round Mountain and near Gaylesville. 

The red ore is now, and probably always will be, the main 
clependance of the iron makers of the State, though a certain 
"proportion of the brown ore is always desirable, and, so far 
as I am aware, always added in making up the furnace bur- 
dens. Some of the furnaces in the Coosa A alley region, Shelby, 
Ironaton, Tecumseh, Rock Run, etc., use the Brown ore ex- 
clusively. 

"Gray" or Magnetite Ore. — This ore occurs in Talladega 
county near Sylacauga, and though its existence has been long 
known, the great extent of the deposits and the richness of 
some of the ore have only recently been demonstrated. The 
ore occurs in several stratified seams of variable thickness, ag- 
gregating in some places more than loo feet. The ore is really 
a hematite with a slight admixture of the magnetite and it is 
associated with the Weisner quartzite of the Cambrian for- 
mation. 

The furnaces at Ironaton have demonstrated by practical 
tests the value of this' ore which often rvms as high as 40-50 
•per cent of metallic iron. The ore being also a siliceous ore 
acquires thereby an additional value in furnace practice. The 
vast quanfity of available ore thus added to our resources in- 
sures the pre-eminence of Alabajna in this connection for 
many years to come. 

The Fluxes. — Until recently the rock universally used as flux 
iii our furnaces has been limestone, either of the Lower Silu- 
rian (Trenton) formation, of the Mountain Limestone division 
of the Sub-carboniferous ; the principal quarries of the first 
named being at Gate City and near the Shelby Iron Works, 
and of the second at Blount Springs, at Trussville, and near 
Milage Springs. These limestones are quite pure, /'. e., free 
from silica, and of reasonably uniform quality. Recen4;ly, 
however, in the vicinity of Birmingham, quarries have been 
opened in the dolomite or magnesian limestone of the Lower 
Silurian formation, and this rock has been gradually coming 
into use in some of the furnaces instead of limestone. 
18 



178 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Lead Ore. — The only occurrence of galena of any conse- 
quence thus far known in Alabama, is in the Trenton lime- 
stone about five miles west of Jacksonville, in Calhoun county, 
where much work was done by the Confederate government 
during the Civil war. Traces of the old quarries are still to 
be seen, and fairly good specimens of the ore may be picked up 
around them. With the present perfected machines for con- 
centrating ores it would seem that this deposit might yet be' 
profitably worked, if only the quantity of the ore were sufifi- 
cient to justify the erection of suitable plant. This' can be as- 
certained only b}' the expenditure of much money. Very much 
of the lead ore of Southeastern Missouri is no richer than some 
which can be obtained from the Calhoun county mines. The 
subject is well worth testing, and attention is now being di- 
rected to this deposit. 

Some small veins with galena have als'o been observed in 
the Knox Dolomite. 

Loose pieces of pure galena may be found on the surface 
over the entire state, in localities where it could not possibly 
be in place. The fact that similar occurrences are noted in all 
the other states adjacent, has led to the inference that these 
loose specimens have been dropped by Indians and others who 
have brought them from Missouri or other lead-producing 
states. There is not a county in Alabama where there is not 
a tradition of a "lead mine," said to have been worked by the 
Indians or early settlers, and the details of these traditions are 
infinitely varied. 

Materials for Portland Cement. — The Trenton limestone and 
the s'ubcarboniferous shales are now coming into use in the 
manufacture of Portland cement. Plants are in course of 
erection at Leeds and at Ragland for this important industry. 

III. The Coal Measures. — The Alabama coal fields were 
named long ago by Prof. Tuomey, from the streams which 
dr^in them, the Warrior, the Cahaba, and the Coosa. The 
Warrior field is still further divided into a Plateau region and 
i. Basin region. The Plateau region extends from the Georgia 
and Tennessee line down toward the southwest as far as the 
meridian of Birmingham, while the basin proper includes that 
part of the field lying beyond this meridian towards the south 
and west. The Lookout Mountain, while draining into the 
Coosa river, has most of the characteristics of the Plateau di- 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 179 

vision of the Warrior field, i. e., its coal beds are chiefly the 
lower beds of the series, and are elevated above the general 
drainage level of the bordering valleys. 

• Coal. — Bituminous coal and the coke made from it are about 
the only mineral products of the Coal Measures in Alabama, 
though in other states black band iron ore, clay iron stone, 
and five clays are obtained from this formation. These mate- 
rials' are well known to occur at various points in our coal 
fields, but they have not yet come into commercial use. 

At the present time there is very little coal mined in the 
Plateau region of the Warrior field or in Lookout Mountain, 
though workable seams, which have at times been mined, occur 
in both. 

Between Murphree's Valley and the Coosa Valley there is a 
long narrow field called the Blount Mountain, which partakes 
of both plateau and basin characters. In this field there are 
several good seams of coal at this time in a fair way of being 
opened up on an extensive scale. The main basin of the War- 
rior field is now the chief producer of Alabama coal, and large 
collieries are in operation at many points in Jeflferson, Walker, 
and Tuscaloosa counties. 

Mining operations in the Cahaba field are now mainly 
grouped about four or five points, viz.. Henry-Ellen in the up- 
per part of the field, and Helena, Montevallo and Blocton in 
the lower part. 

In the Coosa field work is confined to the vicinities of Rag- 
land and Coal City. 

The coal from all three of the Alabama fields makes coke, 
the quality of which has been too well demonstrated by years 
of actual use to need any comment. The most extensive cok- 
ing plants in the state are in Birmingham, Bessemer, Coalburg, 
Pratt City, Johns, Brookwood, Holt, Blocton, Ensley, Thomas, 
and Woodward's, but smaller plants are to be found at most of 
the mines not here enumerated. 

In addition to the above described productions of the min- 
eral regions, we may speak in general terms of materials for 
building and ornamental purposes, and for construction, which 
occur in the various divisions of this region. 

There is, of course, no lack of good building stone in nearly 
all parts of the mineral district, but it is in most places quar- 
ried for local use onlv. The localities are too numerous to 



180 THE ALABAMA Ul'l'OKTUXITV 

be enumerated. Imt a few may be specifically named where 
quarries and dressing works have been regularly opened. 

Granite. — In the Gold Region there are many occurrences 
of good granite, but so far as I am aware, it has not been 
quarried in any systematic way anywhere, though it has been 
utilized along railroad lines traversing this region in build- 
ing culverts and other rough structures. 

Sandstones. — The Coal Measures furnish all the sandstones 
as yet used in Alabama for purposes of construction, and 
dressed stone is furnished from Cullman, from the Jasper 
Stone and Coal Company at Jasper, and at Tuscaloosa sand- 
stone quarried and dress'ed on the spot has been used in the 
construction of the three magnificent locks recently built there 
by the United States Government. 

Limestones. — In all the \'allev Region, limestones are com- 
mon, and from two of the formations already alluded to as 
furnishing material for fluxes in the iron furnaces, viz : the 
Lower Sil;irian and the Sub-carboniferous, have also yielded 
rock for building purposes'. The best known quarries are 
those of the Brothers Fossick in the Tennesse'e Valley, near 
Sheffield. The Government locks at Muscle Shoals on the Ten- 
nessee River are built of the same material. The Trenton lime- 
stone has also been extensively iis'ed in the construction of 
some of the locks on the Coosa River below Greensport. 

Marbles. — This name has been applied to crystalline lime- 
stones and also to any form of limestone which takes a good 
polish and which may be used for ornamental purposes. White 
crystalline marble exists along the 'northwestern border of the 
Gold Region, and at several- points, notably about Taylor's 
yiU\ and near Sylacauga in Talladega county, it has been 
quarried to some extent in the past. 

After many years of neglect t^iis marble has recently been 
brought into notice and the quarries about Sylacauga have 
been reopened on a large scale and a great and growing in- 
dustry has been established. In its best varieties this marble 
is of pure white color, of even fine grain, and equal to the finest 
of the white marble imported from Italy. Some parts of it 
are beautifully clouded and specially adapted to ornamental 
Avork, as may be seen in many of the fine buildings now in 
course of construction in Birmingham and elsewhere. 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 181 

The fitness of the white granular variety for statuary has 
been amply demonstrated by the Italian sculptor, ^^loretti, who 
uses it in his work to the exclusion of the imported material. 

Of the non-crystalline marbles we have a goodly variety, 
though our resources in this, as in so many other particulars, 
are practically undeveloped. Much of the limestone quarried 
for building purposes in the Tennessee Valley by Messrs. 
Fossick & Co., takes a good polish, and might well be used 
for ornamental purposes. In Jones' Valley, a few miles below 
Bessemer, there is an occurrence of limestone of Trenton 
age, which is beautifully variegated with reddish spots and 
streaks. Small pieces of this, taken from the surface outcrops, 
have been dressed and polished and show as beautiful mark- 
ings as the most valued of Tennessee marbles, which it entirely 
resembles. Near Pratt's Ferry in Bibb county, a few miles 
from Centerville, there are immense bluflfs of limestone forming 
the river banks for a" mile or two. Much of this rock is va- 
riegated in color, takes a fine polish and makes a beautiful 
marble. The quarries which have been opened on this rock 
are far from railroads, and hence have not been worked on any 
extensive scale. 

Near Opelika, in Lee county, there is a quarry in a white 
crystalline dolomite or magnesian limestone, which would 
undoubtedly take a good polish and be of use as a white mar- 
ble, but it has never, to my knowledge, been used for any other 
juirpose than for lime burning. 

Material for Lime Manufacture. — Any of the Limestones 
and marbles above named may be used for this purpose, and 
the lime kilns of the state utilize nearly all of them. The 
main lime fttrnishing formations are the Trenton, about Long- 
view, Siluria, Calera, etc.. in Shelby county, Rock Springs in 
Etowah county, and the Crystalline dolomite at Chewacla Kilns 
in Lee county ; but lime has' been made at many other locali- 
ties. 

THE .AGRICULTURAL AXD TIMBER DISTRICT. 

As stated above, about three-fifths of the area of the State 
are here included. This part of the State holds verv little 
of what are usually included among the mineral resources, 
yet from one point of view it is of equal importance with the 



182 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

Mineral District. It is the main farming region of the State 
and contains besides a good proportion of the timber res■ou^•^ 
ces. The only mineral products likely to be of economic im- 
portance are the clays, limestones for Portland cement, ochres 
and the marls, including the phosphatic marls. 

Clays and Ochres. — Along the line which divides the Min- 
eral from the Agricultural districts, are some important de- 
posits of clays which have the same physical characteristics as 
well as the same geological position as the clays of New Jer- 
sey, which have a world-wide reputation. As yet there are no 
openings' in these clays except in one or two places, near Wood- 
stock in Bibb county, near Coosada in Elmore, about Tusca- 
loosa, and a point or two along the Kansas City road in Fay- 
ette and Lamar. At best very little has been done towards 
proving up the quality of the clays. Those taken from near 
Vv'oodstock are sent to Bessemer for mixing with imported 
clays' in the making of fire-brick. Several days ago the clays 
from the vicinity of Tuscaloosa were used in the manufacture 
of wares o£ various kinds. There are also similar pottery 
works in Fayette and Lamar counties, but the systematic and 
thorough proving of the capabilities of these clays remains' yet 
to be done. Near Coosada station on the L. & N. R. R.. not 
far north of "Montgomery, clay has been worked for several 
years and, along with the clays, a yellow ochre. 

In Bulletin No. 6 of the Geological Survey will be found 
a fairly adequate account of the clays of the State by Dr. H. 
Ries of Cornell University, one of the leading clay experts of 
the country. 

Marls and Phosphates. — Along both the northern and south- 
ern border of the Prairie region or Black Belt of the cen- 
tral part of the State, where the limestones come in contact 
with the sandy lands, there are beds of phosphatic marl av- 
eraging some five or six feet in thickness, and having a per- 
centage of phosphoric acid running up as high as 5 per cent. 

These marls' are precisely like those of New Jersey, both as 
to chemical and physical qualities, and as to geological position, 
and there is no reason, except the apathy of our farmers, why 
these marls should not in Alabama work the miracle that 
they have in New Jersey, i. e., turn our wornout fields into 
garden spots. Some little testing has been done at Coatopa, 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 183 

and at Furman, and at Entaw, but notliing adequate. A test 
with these marls to be worth much should be made on a large 
scale, and the lands should receive a heavy dressing as they 
do in New Jersey. With such a dressing once applied the 
fields will certainly show the effects for years to come. 

There are many other parts of South Alabama where good 
calcareous marls "occur in great quantity and are easy of ac- 
cess, especially along the rivers, at Prairie Bluff, Claiborne, 
on the Alabama, and at Nanafalia and Ward's Bluff on the 
Tombigbee, but it is very doubtful if our farmers will ever be 
brought to see the value of these marls, or induced to give them 
a fa ir^ trial. 

Chimney Rock. — In many places in Choctaw, Clarke, Wash- 
ington and other lower counties of the State, there is a bed 
of soft white limestone which is used wherever it occurs as 
material for chimneys, pillars, and similar rough work. This 
rock when somewhat protected from the weather is fairly 
durable, but exposure to frost causes it to crumble. The same 
rock underlies a large proportion of the peninsular of Florida 
and finds similar application there. 

Materials for Portland Cement Manufacture. — The Trenton 
limestone and caboniferous shales of the Mineral District have 
already been mentioned in connection with the Portland ce- 
ment industry. 

In the Agricultural District of South Alabama there are 
two limestone formations which furnish most excellent ma- 
terial for cement, viz : the Selma Chalk or Rotten Limestone 
of the Cretaceous and the St. Stephens limestone of the Ter- 
tiary. In close proxomity to each of these limestones are 
clays of suitable composition and in sufficient quantity. 

A six-kiln plant for the manufacture of this cement has 
been in successful operation in Demopolis for a number of 
years ; all the materials being obtained on the spot. Arrange- 
ments are now in progress for the erection of a similar plant 
at Epes on the Tombigbee river where the same rock occurs. 
Much of the limestone of the Selma chalk belt has very nearly 
the cement composition naturally, and requires very little ad- 
dition of clay. It is present in practically unlimited ^quantity 
over a very great extent of coimtry from the Mississippi line 
eastward. 



184 THE ALABAMA OPPORTLXITV. 

Up to the present time no developments have been made of 
the St. Stephens Hmestone in this connection, but as it is a very 
pure Hmestone soft and easily crushed and in great quantity 
along the rivers and railroads, it seems to be only a question 
of time when it will come into use. 

Bulletin No. 8 recently issued by the Geological Survey con- 
tains many analyses of the raw materials for cement manufac- 
ture from all parts of the State, together with references to the 
occurrence and an account of the manufacture of this most 
important product. 

GEOLOGICAL REPORTS. , 

The reports of the Geological Survey, which give details 
concerning the mineral resources above enumerated, are, so 
far as they still remain on hand, the following: 

0)1 the Gold Region. — Bulletin No. 3, on the Lower Gold 
Belt of Alabama, by Dr. Wm. B. Phillips; Bulletin No. 5, on 
the Upper Gold Belt, by W. M. Brewer, Eugene A. Smith 
and others. 

On the Valley Region. — Reports of Progress for the years 
1875 and 1876. dealing with Jones' Valley chiefly. Report on 
Alurfree's \^alley. by A. M. Gibson. Report on Iron Making 
in Alabama, by W. B. Phillips. Report on the Valley Re- 
gions of Alabama, Part I, Tennessee Valley, by Henry AIc- 
Cally ; Part II, dealing with the Coosa and other Valleys. 

On the Coal Measures. — Report on the Cahaba Coal Field, 
with map and illustrations, by Joseph Squire; Report on the 
Plateau Region of the Warrior Field, by Henry McCalley; on 
the Blount Mountain Coal Field, by A. M. Gibson, on the 
Coosa Field, by A. M. Gibson, and on the Warrior Basin, by 
Henry McCalley. 

On the Agricultural District. — Report on the Coastal Plain 
of Alabama, by Eugene A. Smith and others. 

Bulletin No. 8 on the Cement Resources of the State, by 
Eugene A. Smith and E. C. Eckel. 

Index to the Mineral Resources of Alabama, by Eugene 
A. Smith and Henry McCalley. 

These reports will be sent to any one desiring further infor- 
mation on the subjects treated in them, and a full list of the 
publications of the Survey may also be had upon application 
to the State Geologist at the University of Alabama. 




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ALABAMA'S INVITATION. 



If, for any reason, you are contemplating a change of res- 
idence and wish to come to Alabama, leaving the rigors and 
shivering winds of your present abode, and are seeking a 
more congenial and pleasant place of residence, your earnest 
attention is invited to the many advantages that Alabama can 
offer you. 

The story of Alabama's growth and rapid progress in the 
I ast decade is one of real, every-day, practical life, and does 
not need the touch of the artist's pencil or the imagination of 
some extravagant writer to attract those who are acquainted 
with it; to you who do not know the wonders it possesses and 
vvhat it offers, these few pages are dedicated. The value of 
all classes of property has increased many fold, and the popu- 
lation has grown so rapidly that it is almost like a fairy tale 
to hear of it. and to contemplate the wonderful transformation 
that has been made. In all branches of industry, in all trades 
and professions, the busy, bustling air that has pervaded her 
people, has pushed aside all drones and idlers, and life and 
activity are the watchwords; 

Are you in search of a milder climate and desire to come 
\A'here you can spend the whole or most of the year in the , 
open air in comfort, and escape the cold of winter and the dan- 
gers of the heat and the hot, scorching suns of summer? If 
you do. just what you want can be found in Alabama. Sit- 
uated as it is on about half-way ground between the freezing 
and heating points, we have an equitable and salubrious cli- 
mate — not too cold in winter nor too hot in summer, where 
the thermometer scarcely ever gets to the freezing point, and 
where there is ice not more than a dozen times during the year, 
and where sun-strokes are unknown, the cool breezes of the 
Gulf fanning away the dangers from that source. Here in 
Alabama we have the purest and most delightful drinking 
water ; mild and pleasant w^eather all the time, and health and 
happiness assured; laws that are just and fair to all alike, and 



190 THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 

the enjoyment of life, liberty and property absolutely made se- 
cure to all ; churches and school houses in every neighborhood 
and society, not only thoroughly established, but its rules 
strictly observed as to the vicious and the outcasts. 

THE SITUATION. 

The geographical situation of the State can be seen at a 
glance at the map, — in the Southeastern portion of the United 
States. It is bounded on the north by Tennessee ; on the east 
by Georgia ; on the south by Florida and the Gulf of Mexico ; 
and on the west by Mississippi; lying between latitude 30.10 
and 35 north, and longitude 84.53 ^^^1 88.30 -west. The length 
of the State is 336 miles, and its breadth 200 miles, with an 
area of 52,250 square miles; 710 square miles being water 
surface. There are 32,460,080 square acres, with four grand 
divisions, viz. : — cereal, mineral, cotton, and timber belts. In 
the northeast and center of the State is situated the Allegheny 
Mountains, which cause the water-shed in the northern portion 
to empty into the Mississippi through the Tennessee River, 
while those below the range of mountains flo winto the Gulf 
of Mexico. The Cereal Belt is in the northwestern portion 
of -the fertile Tennessee Valley; the Mineral Belt lies to the 
south of the first, consisting of more than one-third of the total 
area, and having vast and inexhaustible deposits of minerals, 
the development of which has opened new and valuable indus- 
tries ; the coal fields cover an area of 8,000 square miles, with 
beds' of rich ore which rival any in the world, and there are 
also boundless supply of limestone, sandstone, white marble, 
soapstone, flagstone, graphite, and granite ; then comes the 
Cotton Belt, made up of broad, rolling prairies, diversified by 
timber lands, and abundantly supplied with water ; it is com- 
posed of one-third of the total area, and possesses a stiff, black, 
fertile soil, and is the most productive portion of the Sta:te and 
of the South ; then, last is the Timber Belt, which is nearly 
fifty miles in width ,and has a uniform surface slightly above 
the level of the Gulf. The prevailing growth is the yellow, or 
long leaf pine, but there is also oak, cypress, hickory, beech, 
magnolia, walnut, sweet gum ; all of which are inviting the in- 
vestor and the capitalists, and the home-seeker to come and de- 
velop them, and make their homes, and aid us in bringing them 



Tim ALAi;.\MA OPi'ORTUNITV. 191 

into full iMossom and use. for which Nature intended and gave 
them to us. 

The climate is ideal, and the State is as free from diseases, 
from local climatic causes, as is any portion of the country. 
The death rate last year for the whole State was amazingly 
small, and epidemics were unknown. The summers here are 
long, but not as oppressive as in higher latitudes, there being 
almost continual refreshing breezes from the coast. Miasma 
is found only in the low, bottom lands, where fevers are little 
known, but the rosin in the pine belt have a most soothing and 
healthful effect. The mean temperature in the northern part 
of the State is 75 in summer, and 42 in winter; and in the cen- 
t'-al part 81 in summer and 49 in winter,; while in the southern 
portion it is 80 for summer and 52 for winter; the average 
rainfall is 52.5 inches, and there is not much variation in the 
different sections. 

THE WEATHER. 

The weather reports give figures and facts that are not dis- 
puted. The snowfall for the year is very small — an inch or 
two for an entire season being very rare. Read the following 
figures and compare with reports for your own section. 

For the month of June for 34 years the weather has been as 
follows : 

Temperature. — ^lean or normal temperature. 80. The 
warmest month was that of 1897, with an average of 83. The 
coldest month was that of 1884, with an average of 76. The 
highest temperature was 100, on 27th, 1881. The lowest tem- 
perature was 48 deg., on ist, 1889. 

• The earliest date on which first "killing" frost occurred in 
Autumn, October 21st. Average date on which first "kil- 
ling" frost occurred in Autumn, November 8th. Average date 
on which last "killing" frost occurred in spring, April 5th. 

Participation. — (Rain or melted snow.) — Average for the 
month. 4.46 inches. Average number of days with .01 of an 
inch or more, 12. The greatest monthly precipitation was 
11.05 iiiches, in 1876. The least monthly precipitation was 0.90 
inches, in 1880. The greatest amount of precipitation recorded 
in 24 consecutive hours was 4.20 inches, on 12th and 13th, 
1884. 



192 THE ALABAMA OrPORTUXlTY. 

Clouds ami JVcathcr. — Average number of clear clays, 8; 
partly cloudy days, 13; cloudy days, 9. 

Wind. — The prevailing winds have been from the southwest. 
The average hourly velocity of the wind is 7 miles. The high- 
est velocity of the wind was 54 miles from the northwest. 

THE state's resources. 

The taxable property of the State has most perceptibly in- 
creased in the past five years, and now the real estate is' made 
up of 31,804,153 acres of land, and city lots and homes valued 
at $179,959,552; personal property, valued at $127,693,112; 
with a total valuation tif $307,643,704, paying a tax of $770,- 
743.14. The wagons are valued at $1/323,409; mechanical 
tools, $269,309; there are 95,091 sheep, valued at $152,252; 
44,198 goats, valued at $28,706; cattle, 176,840, valued at $1,- 
648.769; horses, 96.793, valued at $28,755.44; mules, 131,774, 
\alued at $8,093,786; studs, jacks and jennies 1,167, valued at 
S105.478; hogs, 19.858, valued at $40,113. The tax rate is 
comparatively low, ranging from 75 cents on the hundred in 
1876, to 65 cents on the hundred now, that being the maximum 
constitutional limit. That for general purposes is now only 
25 cents on the hundred, the balance being made up in special. 
ap]>ropriations for the public schools, pensions, etc. 

THE minerals. 

Alabama is third in iron ore production among the States of 
the Union. In 1902 the product was' 3.574.474 long tons, 
which was a little over 10 per cent, of the iron ore mined in the 
United States; valued at the mines *at $1.10 per ton, or $3,936,- 
812. There are ^2 coke furnaces and 6 charcoal furnaces in 
operation ; charcoal furnace* graduallv going out of blast. In 
pig iron production, the State ranks fourth ; this high rank 
is due greatly to the close proximity of the ore, the stone, 
and the co'al needed for the production of the iron. 

The mineral region of the State is being- rapidly developed, 
c'nd explorations show the resources of this section to be al- 
most without limit. The smoke from the smokestacks anil 
tlie glare from the furnaces show that life and activity have 
£gain s])rung u]), and that man is fast taking advantage of 




STEAMBOAT ON ALABAMA RIVER. 




ALABAMA RIVER SCENE. 



the; ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 197 

the great wealth nature has placed at his disposal. There are 
vast beds of iron ore, and coal measures of great thickness 
which underly the entire central portion, with a maximum 
thickness of 4,000 feet — 11,700,733 tons produced in 1903, 
valued at $15,000,000, placing the State fifth among the coal 
[iroducing States; 12,876 miners and 5.230 day men being em- 
ployed. The coal is- of that bituminous character so well adapt- 
cf! to the purposes of industries requiring steam power, all of 
which make the cheapest iron-making region in all the world. 
There are also large deposits of lead ore, magnese, mica, 
graphite, phosphates, slates, granite, limestone, sandstone, mar- 
ble, ochre, carbonate of lead, calc-cpar, and sulphate of barytes. 
Marble quarries are very extensive, the best marble being 
iound in Calhoun and Talladega counties', and on Cahaba 
River. There are the white craystalline, with shades of green; 
full colored with organic remains; there are also iron mineral 
springs to be found. 

The coke production in 1903 was 2,568.185 tons. Clays and 
cements, and chalk also abound. Gold has been found in 
northeast counties, and is being mined. Copper is also found. 

THE TIMBER. 

The entire wooden area consists of more than 38,000 square 
miles, nearly three-fourths of the total area; the great South- 
ern pine belt traverses the State from east to west, streams 
being utilized for floating timber to market. A recent estimate 
places the standing timber fit for market at twenty-one mil- 
ilon feet. Besides the pines in the Southern low lands, there 
are the bald black cypress, live oak, water oak, magnolia, hick- 
orv, beech, walnut, sweet gum, cedar, and other trees. In the 
northward, the long leaf pine is less common, there being red 
iiiid black oak and chestnut, locust, and hickory, with the scrub 
pine. In the Tennessee Valley are to be found elm, walnut, 
beech, white poplar, and tulip trees. 

AGRICULTURE. 

Alabama is' strictly an agricultural State, and upon farm- 
ing is its foundation structure. The land surface is employed 
60 per cent, in farm lands ; the value of farm property ex- 



198 THF, ALAP.AMA OPPORTUNITY. 

cecded $179,000,000 in kjoo. Negroes owned or operated 
94,000 farins, representing- one-fourtli of the entire value. 
Elevation controls the soil and vegetation of the different sec- 
tions. The Tennessee V'alley has a dee]), red, caleareen soil ; 
the mineral belt a red or gray loam, with a heavy clay subsoil; 
the cotton belt the deep black loam, and ])esides cotton, are well 
adapted to corn, tobacco, wheat, potatoes, and green forage 
for cattle. The last census puts Alabama fourth among the 
cotton-producing States, with ^n.cpo.ooo ])ounds of cotton, 
valued at $43,768,000; which, with cotton seed, $7,808,000; 
a total of $51,756,000. Cotton is grown in every county, and 
35 per cent, of improved lands is devoted to its cultivation. 
Corn is the most important cereal, ()0 per cent, of the area 
devoted to grain bi'ing given to it. The haw sweet potatoes, 
sugar-cane, rice, oat and wheat crops are also of nuich import- 
ance. Rice is now being extensively raised in the soutliern 
portion of the State, and is an industr\ that is raiiidly on the 
increase. 

MANUFACTURING. 

Manufacturing enterprises are coming to the raw material, 
and they find it in the fields and forests and beneath the sur- 
face in Alabama. Imv^ui i8()0 to 1900 there was a gain of near- 
ly i)0 per cent, in manufacturing establishments, an 1 in i()00 
there were 5,C)Oi) in the State, where less than 3 ])jr cent, of 
the ])()pnlation is em])loye(l. The gross value of manufactures 
v.as nearly $83,000,000, of which leading industries showed an 
output of 80 ]X'r cent., or $67.000,000 ; j)ig iron is the main 
product of iron and steel, and in i860 the value of the pig iron 
output was less than $65,000; in 1880 it was $1,405,000; and 
in 1900 it had reached the enormous amount of more than 
$13,465,000, supplying most of the pig iron used by English 
manufacturers'. Alabama is the largest producer of foundrv 
iron, making railway cars and car wheels, cast iron pipes, 
stoves, engines, and boilers. In 1900 Alabama had more than 
cne-tenth of the whole number of active blast furnaces in the 
United States. The annual cut of lumber is several hundred 
million feet; Mobile exporting 140,000,000 feet alone. The 
tanning and finishing of leather has increased tenfold in the 
past ten vears, and Alabama is destined to be one of the fore- 



THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 



199 



most manufacturing States in the near future. Commercia! 
fertilizers are also one of the leading industries, being manufac- 
tured in large quantities to meet demands of cotton growers. 




COTTON. 



Cotton is the main crop, and is grown over the entire State ; 
the State has 56 cotton mills, 25 of which make cloth of some 
kind, the remainder being confined to making of yarn ; the 
value of the cotton mills is nine and a half million dollars, 
employing six thousand laborers, their daily wages being about 
$3,900, or $1,200,000 a year. The mills of the State spin about 
three hundred thousand bales of cotton, of which one hundred 
thousand bales are made into cloth. The manufactured cotton 
products are valued at $28,000,000 a year. If the total crop 
of eleven million bales were manufactured here, the total value 
would be increased to over one hundred million dollars ; 
bringing forty million dollars' more into the State than now 
comes from the sale and manufacture of the staple in Alabama. 
The quality of the staple made here is good, and commands 
the highest market prices. 



I b 05 



